Part 1: An NBA Midseason Power Poll, Plus OSU vs. Notre Dame with Joel Anderson and Van Lathan

Speaker 1 Coming up, I have an NBA mid-season power poll plus college football. A lot of it next.

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Speaker 1 We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. I don't have a new rewatchables for you this week.

Speaker 1 We did record a long, giant mailbag that we're going to run on Monday's episode, and then we'll be back to a normal schedule after that. So, thanks for your patience on that one.

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Sportsbook app. Coming up on this podcast,

Speaker 1 it's basically mid-season NBA, so I wanted to get down a giant power poll and count down everybody from 30 to 1. So we did that, and it took longer than I thought.
Sorry, I had a lot to say.

Speaker 1 Followed by Joel Anderson, recent addition to the ringer, who we're going to talk sports culture and a lot of college football. Then Van Lathan comes in to talk about the championship game and

Speaker 1 Joel's five favorite things in college football. So that is part one of this podcast because I'm going to do a part two later with NFL and million-dollar picks.

Speaker 1 That's going to go up, I don't know, 10, 11 hours from now. So that is the schedule.
Everything is

Speaker 1 okay here in Southern California. Definitely better than it was three days ago.
Still terrible, but we got through all the wins on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Speaker 1 And now the recovery and all that stuff is in full swing. I'm going to talk about some charities and stuff that I like in part two of the podcast.
So

Speaker 1 here's part one. Gonna do the mid-season power poll.
One second, first our friends from Pro Jam.

Speaker 1 It's the January 16th, almost mid-season NBA power poll. We're gonna go from team number 30 all the way down to team number one,

Speaker 1 separated by sections. I'm going to get off a bunch of takes.
So going backwards, there's five teams that are just openly tanking right now.

Speaker 1 I'm putting them in the capture of the flag territory for Cooper Flag. Get a lot of buzz lately, that Cooper Flag.
I don't care if they do 6'7. He's going to be awesome.
Washington, 6'32.

Speaker 1 Charlotte, 9-28. Toronto, 10-31.
Utah, 10-29. That's our 30 to 27 rankings.
What's interesting is none of those teams really have an awesome trade piece.

Speaker 1 Utah has has a couple smaller ones like Sexton's interesting.

Speaker 1 Clarkson, although he's not having a great year. Brooklyn at number 26 is our big entry for this.
They're 14 and 27. They lost by 59 points last night and it felt worse.

Speaker 1 Cam Johnson would be the potential move for them.

Speaker 1 Pretty decent contract. We've talked about it before in the podcast.
It's basically $22 million a year for a couple of years.

Speaker 1 Could he go to Memphis for Smart and La Rabia and a first and protect first baby? I couldn't find a lot of trades for him because

Speaker 1 a lot of teams don't have contracts to patch together

Speaker 1 around that mid-20s stuff. Or if they do,

Speaker 1 like some of the second apron teams, what they're sending out has to be more than what Cam Johnson makes. It's a little complicated, but Memphis was the one team I was kind of looking at.

Speaker 1 A fun topic with the Nets is what's Ben Simmons' next contract?

Speaker 2 Probably minimum.

Speaker 1 Would somebody get frisky around like July 6th and be like, ah, Ben Simmons, all NBA a couple years ago. And all of a sudden, he's making two years for 20.

Speaker 2 Who knows? I really like this draft, though.

Speaker 1 And I'm just starting to get into it. Once football ends, I'm going to throw myself into it a little bit more because it's fun.
But flag, love, two record kids, the Lithuanian kid at Illinois.

Speaker 1 I think there's real stakes, and I think we're going to see some pretty incredible tanking as we get on the stretch.

Speaker 1 The next category is the pre-tankers,

Speaker 1 which includes Portland at 25. They're They're 13 and 26.

Speaker 1 If you catch them on the right night, they look pretty good. It's a weird team.

Speaker 1 They remind me of when you go through like one of those old basketball handbooks or like basketball reference and you go to like the 1979 season, you just look at the players on teams, you're like, hmm.

Speaker 1 That's an interesting team. What were they thinking there? They have three centers and no point guards and eight wings.
What the hell was this team? That's kind of Portland right now.

Speaker 1 I also think DeAndre Ayton probably should have played in 1979. Might have been a better year for him.

Speaker 1 I don't know what this team is. I don't know what the point of it is.
And I'm not sure they know either. I don't know what the trades are.
Ayton is now untradeable, I think.

Speaker 1 He's been pretty bad. Scoot is the one they have to figure out if they can unlock as an asset.
He had 39 points two nights ago. My stockbroker called me immediately.

Speaker 1 But before that 39-point game was trending

Speaker 1 toward the most wrong I've ever been about a lottery pick in the last 35 years. And I actually made a list.

Speaker 1 I went through and I tried to remember guys that I was super high on and why didn't it work out. Going backwards, I think these were the big, the biggest misses for me.
Wiseman, 2020.

Speaker 1 Not 100% my fault. Mostly my fault.
Not 100% my fault. It was the COVID year.
He had barely played at Memphis.

Speaker 1 Theoretically, he made sense as like this big guy who who could pass, who could, you know, it just, it just didn't work out.

Speaker 1 I don't have a ton of regrets about it like I do with Scoot, where I just thought Scoot was going to be this downhill Russell Westbrook, unbelievable athlete guy, and we just haven't seen it.

Speaker 1 I have no excuses with Scoot. Wiseman, there's some excuses.
Lonzo in 2017, I was super high on, and he just got hurt. So I don't feel bad about that.
Jabari Parker, 2014, I really liked.

Speaker 1 Now, his knees were made of Fusilli. So I don't know how much blame I can get for that one, but he also belonged to this different era.

Speaker 1 He made way more sense in the 1990s and 2000s, what his game was, the scoring small forward who couldn't guard anybody. And then as the league shifted, it's like, is he a four or is he a three?

Speaker 1 So I feel a little bad about that one, but not scoot level. Michael Kidd Gilchrist in 2012, I loved, I liked him at Kentucky.

Speaker 1 I just thought he was going to be an incredible 3 and D guy once he learned how to shoot threes. Guess what? Never learned how to shoot threes.
He had some weird elbow thing.

Speaker 1 His elbow was always like,

Speaker 1 I forget, it was like a childhood injury or something. He just could never shoot.

Speaker 1 This one is probably my worst one since Scoot.

Speaker 1 Derrick Williams in 2011.

Speaker 1 I still don't know what happened here. When you think like where the league was going 2011, that's right when Curry was starting to blow up.
a little bit at Golden State.

Speaker 1 Maybe a year later was when the Curry and the threes started. But Derrick Williams, on paper, like the perfect stretch for,

Speaker 1 like just exactly what you'd want. Somebody, good athlete who could rebound and shoot threes.
And I don't really know what happened. He went to Minnesota.

Speaker 1 It just, it just, I'd love to do his career again. I'm not going to admit 100% defeat on it, but I'll admit 90% defeat.
Ricky Rubio, 2009. My two favorite guys in that draft were Curry and Rubio.

Speaker 1 And not in that order, because I liked Rubio more. I thought Rubio was going to be a generational point guard.
I was all in.

Speaker 1 I'm not positive I was wrong because, first of all, he goes to that weird Minnesota team. They have 100-point guards.
He doesn't come over right away.

Speaker 1 Right as it's starting to really happen for him on the T-Wolves, Kobe crashed into his knee and he blew out his ACL. And he just, he was never the same.
I would love to do his career over again.

Speaker 1 I still feel like I was right on him and it just didn't happen. So still not as bad a scoot.
And then the last one, Jay Williams in 2002.

Speaker 1 I think I have a column in the archive somewhere where I thought he was a better pick than Yao Ming.

Speaker 2 I'm not positive I was wrong.

Speaker 1 Jay Williams was a really exciting guard. I remember we talked about this on, he came on my podcast like seven, eight years ago.
He was an electric Rustbrook, Rustbrook,

Speaker 1 Westbrook Rose kind of athletic point guard that he was definitely something. Then he had the motorcycle accident.
We'll never know. So out of all of these,

Speaker 1 I think Scoot was just the biggest miss for me because I thought athletically,

Speaker 1 what he was as a downhill guy and as a competitor, competitor, I just thought he was going to be awesome. And I missed it.

Speaker 1 And I'm still holding on to stock. Maybe it'll turn around.
39 points the other night. Not giving up yet.
All right.

Speaker 1 Number 24, Chicago.

Speaker 1 They're 18 and 23.

Speaker 1 Super fun team. Great league pass team.
Levine has been awesome.

Speaker 1 Levine has rejuvenated himself as a trade value asset to the point that if you're ranking him against all the other guys who are definitely available, you'd probably want him him the most.

Speaker 1 You'd definitely want him more than Beal.

Speaker 1 So he's 23, 5, and 5. He's like a 50, 40, 80 guy this year.

Speaker 1 He's had good games against really good teams.

Speaker 1 Like he had two really good games against Knicks, really good game against Boston, two really good games against Memphis, a really good game against San Antonio.

Speaker 1 He's putting up big stats against excellent defensive teams.

Speaker 1 And I think he's a really interesting trade piece as we head toward the deadline because I don't know why Chicago

Speaker 1 wouldn't want to explore trading him.

Speaker 1 But compared to Bale and some of the other ones, even Jimmy Butler, who you just have no idea where his head's at, I think he's a legit trade asset. I think Vucevich is a legit trade asset.

Speaker 1 On the other hand, why give those guys away? Like,

Speaker 1 you're going to be a top 10 draft pick anyway, probably.

Speaker 1 I don't know why I would just be like, yeah, sure, take Vuch for a protected first. I'd rather just keep him and hope his value goes up.

Speaker 1 Regardless, this is the perfect Jerry Reinstorf team. They're mediocre, they're fun to watch, they're not in the luxury tax, and keep cashing those checks, Jerry.

Speaker 1 Next category, we just did the pre-tankers. I'm calling this category the rock and the hard place.

Speaker 1 Number 23, Philadelphia.

Speaker 1 They're 15 and 24.

Speaker 1 That's really awful.

Speaker 1 4-19 against above 500 teams.

Speaker 2 Yikes.

Speaker 1 Paul George, he's played 26 games. He's shooting 42%,

Speaker 1 2.7 free throw attempts a game. As you know, I love free throw attempts because it tells you, does somebody go to the basket or not? He doesn't go to the basket anymore.
Not sure what he's doing.

Speaker 1 He was 5.3 free throw attempts two years ago. Just in general, looks old.

Speaker 1 I don't know if this is a phase because he was hurt before the year. Maybe his conditioning wasn't there.
Maybe podcasting.

Speaker 1 Maybe he's proving that podcasting is more grueling than you guys give it credit for. He doesn't look the same.

Speaker 1 And he doesn't look the same to the point that I think if Philly called Miami and said, we'll give you Paul George for Jimmy Butler. I don't think Miami does it.

Speaker 1 I don't think they want any part of three more years after this year of Paul George. So he's hit that point already, unless he can show on a basketball court that he's better than that.

Speaker 1 Because right now we're not seeing it. I didn't like when he complained about playing the five when it beats out.
And he said it was, this is just not that fun for me.

Speaker 1 You're trying to win games. You're 15 and 24.
Maybe do whatever it could take to make the team better.

Speaker 1 Rough signing. So you have that.

Speaker 1 The Nick Nurse thing has gone terribly, and I am not ruling him out for the Amazon NBA Studio Show next season. I think he's got to be in there.

Speaker 2 Embiid.

Speaker 1 This is the big thing.

Speaker 1 13 games, 389 minutes this year.

Speaker 1 For his career, he's missed 404 games now, and he's played 446.

Speaker 1 So he's edging toward 50-50. I played or I didn't play for my entire career.

Speaker 1 They had a four and five this week. That was the biggest stretch of their season, playing all playoff teams, all really good teams.
He missed the first two. We'll see what happens with the others.

Speaker 1 He's got knee stuff plus a foot thing, and

Speaker 1 it just doesn't seem like it's going to happen again in the same way.

Speaker 1 I remember Goldsbury asked me earlier in the year,

Speaker 1 is he in like a 2008 Shaq stage? Embiid, 2008 Shaq played. He was, I think, third team on NBA.

Speaker 1 Embiid doesn't play. And

Speaker 1 when you miss 404 games over the course of 11 years, yikes.

Speaker 1 When he did play, offensively, it looks great,

Speaker 1 can still get to the free throw line, can still make that little 20-footer at the top of the key. It's still big and huge.
He falls down all the time, falls down more than ever.

Speaker 1 I think his fall down per 48 minutes is the highest it's ever been.

Speaker 1 The thing that was really alarming with him was the Golden State game a couple weeks ago.

Speaker 1 I'm not sure if you guys saw it, but Golden State was just doing the thing where they just everybody's cutting and moving and passing and the ball is flying around. They're doing the 2014 Spurs thing.

Speaker 1 And Embiid was wandering around like a drunk guy outside of the bar and at 2.15 in the morning, trying to keep up with it. And if you watch that one game,

Speaker 1 you would say to yourself, it is impossible to think that this team could win four straight playoff rounds, which if they make the playoffs now, they'd have to win at least one play-in game, maybe two.

Speaker 1 They'd have to play Cleveland in round one, right? Then you'd have to play the winner of

Speaker 1 whoever the 4-5 is. And then the Knicks, Celtics would be waiting in the last.
I mean, there's no way. So I was thinking like

Speaker 1 the Knicks, who they always had this relationship with Embiid with Leon Rose and Wes, and those were his guys.

Speaker 1 And it was always like, well, if he ever gets unhappy in Philly, the Knicks will trade for him. Can you imagine if the Knicks went all in for Embiid last summer?

Speaker 1 And instead of getting towns and bridges, they basically took all those assets and just had Embiid.

Speaker 1 And then what happened with Embiid this year, 13 games, 389 minutes? What's happening in New York after they had the super fun team last year?

Speaker 1 It's a bullet dodge, my friends. Anyway, they are number 23, and I think we can cross them off as a title contender.
I'm ready to do that. New Orleans, up to 22.
They're 10 and 32.

Speaker 1 We knew they would be a what the fuck happened to that team in the West, and they're the team. They had a stretch where their body language was the worst in the league.

Speaker 1 Their home court, when they do the wide shot, all the seats in mid-court, like maybe one-third of them are full. The energy is just super, super, super weird.

Speaker 1 They should probably be doing everything possible to suck at this point.

Speaker 1 And yet, when you watch them, which I've watched a couple games, they've turned in a really fun league pass team. Trey Murphy's playing great.

Speaker 2 Zion's back.

Speaker 1 Murray's back.

Speaker 1 They're a good team when everybody's playing. They're not a great team, but they're a good team.
You would think they were like a six to ten playoff seed potentially with everybody.

Speaker 1 They haven't had anybody, but they're 10 and 32.

Speaker 1 And I don't know what the move is because it's really hard for them to tank when they have as many good players as they do. I mean, one thing I got to get credit for,

Speaker 1 they just nail their draft pick every year. Like Messi's has a chance to win Rookie of the Year this year.
Every year, it seems like they hit their pick.

Speaker 1 Trey Murphy, who they just resigned, but Hawkins, I like all these guys.

Speaker 1 And they have a bunch of trade assets. Ingram, 36 million expiring.
Zion, 36.7 withouts every year. McCollum, 33 and 30.6.
Sorry, CJ, for mentioning you in a trade rumor. Murray, 29.5.

Speaker 1 They have moves. I just don't know what the move is.
And

Speaker 1 my guess is they'll probably limp along for the next month and try to figure out what they are.

Speaker 1 And if they keep winning games, maybe start trying to talk themselves into a run at the 10th seed, which would kind of be insane. But what else are you going to do?

Speaker 1 You have all these good basketball players who are trying to play hard.

Speaker 1 This is a team to watch. It's a team to watch from a spoiler standpoint, from a trade machine standpoint.

Speaker 1 And then the Zion piece of it, where he just, he goes away for four, five, six weeks, whatever it was, comes back and looks really good and doesn't look fat or out of shape.

Speaker 1 And you're like, whoa, this is going great. And then the story comes out, they have to suspend him because he's repeatedly late to practices and stuff.

Speaker 1 And you just go, this guy just never, ever going to get it. I would still trade for him if I was a team like San Antonio.
We'll get to that in a second.

Speaker 1 Next category, the trade machine heroes.

Speaker 1 Phoenix, number 21. They are 19 and 20.
Their last 15 games, they're basically 22nd net, 26 defense for points per 100% possessions.

Speaker 1 This team's just not good.

Speaker 1 You can talk yourself into, oh, they just got it.

Speaker 1 I don't see it. I watched them play whoever, and I'm very invested in them because this is going to be probably the first FanDuel duel super boost we've lost since 2020.

Speaker 1 We thought they were going to get 47 plus wins. We thought they were going to shoot a bunch of threes.
Brusselo House and I were all aligned on it. And then you watch them and I just don't see it.

Speaker 1 They can't rebound. They can't protect the rim.
The guys don't seem like they like playing with each other.

Speaker 1 You watch them play a team. I don't know, like pick a bad team.
Like they'll play like Charlotte or Washington or whoever.

Speaker 1 And you're watching the back and forth. You're like, I'm not sure they're much better than this other team.
The league's just really good and really deep.

Speaker 1 And what's funny, KD and Booker are both over 36 minutes a game, and they've actually had them for most of the year.

Speaker 1 It's a team that makes more sense on paper in 2017 than in 2025 when you need depth. They just threw away depth.
The Beal trade, the Beal trade was Chris Paul, Shammit.

Speaker 1 2024, 26, 28, and 30 first-round swaps with Washington and a bunch of seconds for Beal.

Speaker 1 And it was a terrible trade when it happened. I hated it.
I thought they left themselves with no outs. I was not a giant Beal guy.

Speaker 1 And now he's at 50, 53.7 and 57 million for this year and the next two with a no trade clause. And they can't trade him.
He knows they can't trade him. I'm not sure he gives a crap.

Speaker 1 They have Nurkic at 18 and 19.

Speaker 1 They have Grayson Allen at basically 16 this year, and then three more years after that. And those are their trade assets.
And nobody wants Beal. Nobody, not one team.
I don't know what they do.

Speaker 1 I do know this. I was thinking about the worst big threes of all time because we did use the big three.
I didn't, but we used the big three word with the, with Durant and Booker and Beal.

Speaker 1 This is up there for worst big three of all time.

Speaker 1 But I think the answer, as much as I love Steve Nash, is Kobe and Dwight and Nash that one year at the Lakers when people were calling them the big three.

Speaker 1 And then Nash was like, his body just completely broke down. Kobe hated Dwight.
That's probably our worst big three. You could could talk me into LeBron and AD and Russ.

Speaker 1 Some people try to get it going when Russ and Paul George and Carmelo were on the same team that one year.

Speaker 1 But this is like a possible Mount Rushmore. Oh my God, I can't believe we called them the big three kind of situation.
It's also another unhappy Kevin Durant team.

Speaker 1 So we have the 2019 Warriors, unhappy. 2022 and 23 Nets, unhappy, unhappy.
2024 Sons, unhappy. 2025 Sons, currently unhappy.
I'm just flagging it. Maybe it's a coincidence.

Speaker 1 One more thing with them. They keep, Beal keeps being mentioned in trades

Speaker 1 as if anyone's trading for him. And it's like, well, Jimmy Butler really wants to go to Phoenix.
Cool.

Speaker 1 You're going to have to trade Kevin Duran or Devin Booker for Jimmy Butler because you're not getting him for Bradley Beal. Nobody wants that contract.
Nobody wants Bradley Beal.

Speaker 1 I think he's the number one trade asset you don't want in the entire league. Sorry, Bradley Beal, but it's true.

Speaker 1 The Suns are the guy in your fantasy league who texts you and tries to trade you DeAndre Swift for Brock Bowers. Hey, I see you need a running back.
What about Swift for Bowers?

Speaker 2 And you're just like, dude, stop.

Speaker 1 Nobody wants Beal.

Speaker 1 There's nobody wants Nurkic. It's like, yeah, you're not getting Vusevic for Nurkic and a couple of number twos.
Stop.

Speaker 2 It's not happening.

Speaker 1 The whole league is annoyed by the Suns. It's a really important point.
Everyone in the league is like, Ishbi is just on a bender and

Speaker 1 this team is insane and stop calling us.

Speaker 1 Miami at number 20, speaking of Bradley Beal. They're 20 and 19.

Speaker 1 It's weird.

Speaker 1 They're, you know, in the top half of the league in offense and defense, they're getting an awesome Tyler Hero year, who at the end of some of these games has really been a pretty special offensive player sometimes.

Speaker 1 You watch, you catch a certain heat game with two minutes left, and he's just like slicing and dicing somebody i think that's one of the reasons butler might not have been 100 happy with this miami situation because when you watch him there's games where hero just seems like a way better option at the end of games bam's offensively is just taking a huge step back and i don't really know whether it's whether it's uh an aberration or what's going on there, but it's worth mentioning that I don't think he's as big of an asset as he was last year.

Speaker 1 Maybe it'll come back. But if you don't get a star back in a Jimmy Butler trade, what's the point of this team? Because your top two is Bam and Hero.
Congratulations.

Speaker 1 I don't know where that's getting you with the way the league is now with how deep and awesome it is. So with Jimmy,

Speaker 1 no deal works with Houston and Memphis because they don't want him.

Speaker 1 Dallas or Milwaukee, they don't have anything they could trade back.

Speaker 1 Sacramento, there's like a DeRosan Herder, Trey Lyles or Keegan Murray. But if I'm Sacramento, I don't want to deal with Jimmy Butler and

Speaker 1 trade for him. And then he's unhappy in Sacramento, and then he's opting in for 50 plus next year.
I'm not doing that.

Speaker 1 Denver,

Speaker 1 I don't think Miami takes Michael Porter Jr. plus Najee, which I think that would basically have to be the trade.

Speaker 1 I'm also not sure Jimmy Butler solves whatever issue Denver has because they're already like shaky enough with three-point shooting and then they're going to get rid of Michael Porter Jr.

Speaker 1 I don't like that trade for anybody. Plus Denver's playing better.
Phoenix, they're not taking Beal.

Speaker 1 Golden States, not trading Wiggins and Kaminga and other stuff for Jimmy Butler.

Speaker 1 And if I'm Miami, I'm not trading Jimmy unless I can get Zion in a three-way.

Speaker 1 I mean, a basketball three-way.

Speaker 1 Ingram and McCollum together from New Orleans with Butler and Rogier going out. I would consider that.

Speaker 1 I don't know why New Orleans would do that.

Speaker 1 Tobias Harris and Tim Hardaway is expiring, plus maybe a protected pick from Detroit.

Speaker 1 It's a little more interesting because Kate has become a top 20 player in the league.

Speaker 1 And if you're the Pistons, you could just turn and basically make a 30 cents in the dollar trade and get Jimmy Butler and hope that he's excited for the next year and a half.

Speaker 1 Paul George mentioned earlier, no way.

Speaker 1 And then there's maybe a trade where you just get cap space back. But

Speaker 1 I thought for sure Jimmy Butler was going to get traded. And then the more I kind of sniffed around, talked to different people, tried to figure out the trades.

Speaker 1 I don't think there's a trade.

Speaker 1 So I don't know what happens here. And maybe there's a surprise team.
Like, oh my God, the Pistons traded for him.

Speaker 1 There's one team coming up later that we'll mention for this, but I'm really having trouble and I'm the trade machine Picasso.

Speaker 1 Let's we'll take a break and we'll finish the power poll right after this.

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Speaker 1 All right, next category for the Power Poll is the feel-good upstarts. That can only be the Detroit Pistons.
I have them number 19th. They're 21 and 19th.

Speaker 1 They had a huge bummer with Jaden Ivey getting hurt, which a game that I was actually watching when it happened in a play that

Speaker 1 the guy diving for the loose ball goes into the side of somebody's leg that you just think would happen more often in the NBA. It never does.
And then when it happens, it's awful.

Speaker 1 But that was a bummer because they were really starting to figure out something with him and Cade.

Speaker 1 I really liked when he would come set the pick for Cade and they would kind of do this small man's pick and roll thing.

Speaker 1 So Cade is basically 24, 7, and 10.

Speaker 1 And he's 45%, 38% from 3. He's going to be on the all-star team.

Speaker 1 And he's turned into an awesome asset. And

Speaker 1 we were unclear the first couple years, especially with the way the team was losing. But I'm willing to redo now my number one pick since Tim Duncan list, where

Speaker 1 there's eight definitive no's. You would not take this guy again.
Ayton, Fultz, Simmons, Bennett, Odin, Bargnani, Kwame Brown, Ola Candy. I still can't believe Ola Candy went first.

Speaker 1 The late 90s were unbelievable for basketball content. I really wish I had had a bigger audience back then.

Speaker 1 The sort of list, there's seven guys: Zion, Wiggins, Wall, Bogut, Kmart, Elton Brand. I'm going to put Reese Sach in there too because I like Rishay.
He's like 19.

Speaker 1 We have no idea what's going to happen with him, but that's like a sort of. You can see it.
There's a case for it.

Speaker 1 Some of those guys, like Zion

Speaker 1 and maybe even Wiggins,

Speaker 1 maybe the next five years will even boost them into the yes category. And then the yes guy, you would take this again.

Speaker 2 Wemby, Paolo, Edwards.

Speaker 1 Three great ones. Three great number one overall picks there.
Anthony Davis, Kyrie, Blake Griffin, Derek Rose, Dwight Howard, LeBron,

Speaker 2 Yow.

Speaker 1 That was 10 the last time I did this. We have two additions.

Speaker 1 I think Carl Anthony Towns is officially a yes. He's been a really good number one overall pick, especially

Speaker 1 the fact that he was part of a really good Minnesota team last year that almost made the finals. And then this year,

Speaker 1 you know,

Speaker 1 one of the best 12 players in the league so far. So he's in there.
And then I think Kate is a yes now.

Speaker 1 I think when you think about did that number one overall pick, did that work? Did that kind of work? Did that not work? He definitely 100% worked. So kudos to him.

Speaker 1 I'm still interested to see what they do with Tobias Harris and Hardaway as trade bait because you can get to 41 million with them. They also have this 14 million under the cap situation.

Speaker 1 So there's a lot of fun stuff they can do. And the fact that they're over 500, even without Ivy in an Eastern conference, that has been pretty weird.
I'd like to see them do something.

Speaker 1 All right, next team, Sacramento, number 18. They are 20 and 20.

Speaker 1 This team would have been a three seed six years ago. And now they have a fired coach.
And

Speaker 1 I don't know what the hell they are.

Speaker 1 They fired Mike Brown. They lost the first game.
They won a couple goofy games that they shouldn't have won. and now it got the momentum.
And now all of a sudden, the vibes are good.

Speaker 1 And it's like, see, that's why we fired Mike Brown.

Speaker 1 I'm not sure that was the difference. Obviously, not in the locker room, but I just think they had some bad luck earlier in the season, and they got some better luck later.

Speaker 1 Now DeRosen's starting to look better. Fox missed a couple games.
I was watching them because House and Sal and I and Hench,

Speaker 1 we did a parlay over under wins total bet.

Speaker 1 like three weeks ago and one of them was Sacramento under. I think it was like 42 wins.
And we were like, Sacramento, this is a, this team's falling apart.

Speaker 1 And then they fired the coach five days later and now it's coming back with Doug Christie, former star of basketball-wise.

Speaker 1 I don't know what happens with them. I'll tell you this, though.
There was a moment with the Kings where it felt like they were full Kings.

Speaker 1 And you go, they're 13 coaches in 20 years. They had that light the beam season.
Then they overextended Sabonis. They did the Barnes extension.
Vizenkov, that signing was terrible.

Speaker 1 They blew the Devin Carter pick. They did the Rosendale.
And it it was just like, oh, the Kings are back. But now they're playing well.
So I don't know. I'm sure their fans are confused too.

Speaker 1 Interesting play-in team, by the way, because Fox, you know,

Speaker 1 Fox and Sabonis, they have two of the top 25 guys in the league. So I'm not positive I would want to see them in the 8-9 game.
Lakers, I have 17th, 21 and 17.

Speaker 1 They're still in the bottom 10 in the league on defense.

Speaker 1 They're in the bottom five in the league rebounding.

Speaker 1 Two things that scare me. There was a Dallas game last week when

Speaker 1 Dallas abused Austin Reeves to the point that

Speaker 1 I thought Reeves' corner was going to throw in the towel. And that's the rub with this Lakers team is that any smart team can just attack them defensively.
And it's like, pick your guy.

Speaker 1 Do you want to attack Reeves? Oh, Connect's out there. Let's attack him.

Speaker 1 Oh, LeBron's decided not to move around on defense today. Let's just start doing back cuts and making him move around.
They're just too easy to score on.

Speaker 1 I like the Phineas Smith trade, though. And Max Christie's playing better.
And

Speaker 1 I don't dislike the roster. I think they have real issues that are going to surface in the playoffs.

Speaker 1 But as a regular season team, especially when LeBron plays well or Davis plays well in any given game, it feels like they can beat just about anybody except for like seven teams.

Speaker 1 But for the most part,

Speaker 1 this team, not even close to being a contender to me. I can't, it would be a miracle if they won one round.

Speaker 1 And the LeBron plus minus stuff is pretty strange. Like, I did that like a week ago.
I looked it up. He had the worst plus minus of anyone who's playing 30 minutes or more in a winning team.

Speaker 1 It was minus 6.2. It's mostly the defense.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 1 if I were them, if Genie Buss asked me what to do, I would tell them not to trade any assets. I don't understand the point of doing that.
There's no scenario where they make the finals.

Speaker 1 There's no trade out there that would put them in the finals. So

Speaker 1 Golden State, number 16,

Speaker 1 probably in a similar situation. I think the difference is they're in top five defensive rating.

Speaker 1 They have a bunch of tradable stuff and they desperately need a second scorer. And you could see a world where if they got a second guy who could up out Steph, maybe they become friskier.

Speaker 1 They're well coached.

Speaker 1 They have a lot of continuity together. The problem is if you get somebody like Jimmy Butler, you're going to have to give up Wiggins in the trade.
Now I'm losing stuff defensively.

Speaker 1 I'm losing other assets.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 1 the trade that makes sense to me is Vucubich, and it's

Speaker 1 made sense for, I would say, about a month and a half. And it's basically, you know, Looney can be any makes $8 million.

Speaker 1 Moses, Moody, put Peyton's expiring in there or another Kyle Anderson, whatever you need to do, throw in a pick and just add Vucevich and kind of have him playing off with Curry.

Speaker 1 I think somebody told me this.

Speaker 1 Curry's never had a stretch five in his entire career. Every guy in the league has played with somebody, a three who could make a three, and he's just never had it.

Speaker 1 Curry's at an interesting point in his career because

Speaker 1 they've cut his minutes down on like 31 minutes a game. His per 36 is still right around where you want it to be.
Like he's 26 a game, 45%, 42% from three.

Speaker 1 But I did my ringer 100, and I couldn't justify putting him in the top 10 anymore, at least right now. It could change in a month.

Speaker 1 But if he's your best player on a team and the supporting cast is solid,

Speaker 1 you're just not a contender.

Speaker 1 So when I did my top 100, I had Jokic first, Giannis second. I put Shea third, Tatum fourth, Luca fifth for now, because he's hurt and there's durability stuff with him that I'm not positive about.

Speaker 1 I have Wemby sixth, Davis, seventh,

Speaker 1 Mitchell eighth,

Speaker 1 Brunson nine, Edwards 10,

Speaker 1 Curry 11. And Curry versus

Speaker 1 Edwards and Brunson, I think is the big question there. But those guys are just more reliable night to night at this point.
Curry's 36. It's just the way it is.

Speaker 1 If it was one game with my life on it, it's a different question. But if we're talking about a regular season, I don't see how he's in the top 10 right now.
That could change.

Speaker 1 Next category, the Young'in Funs.

Speaker 1 Oh, by the way, with Golden State, I don't, this is not the Jimmy Butler team for me. Not worth it.

Speaker 1 The Young'in Funs. I only have one team in this, Atlanta.
I have them 15, 21, and 19.

Speaker 1 They got Trey going a little bit. We talked about Trey like a month ago.
He's up to 23 a game, 12 assists. His shooting percentages are up a little bit.

Speaker 1 And he's had some good games when other guys weren't playing. You can kind of see, oh, this is a game I get to shoot 33 times.

Speaker 1 I still really like this team as like a stealth.

Speaker 1 You'll beat them in round one, but it's probably not going to be that easy. Their three-point shooting is the thing that's been really hurtful to them.
Daniels, 31%, Reese, 28. Jalen Johnson, 32.

Speaker 1 Bogdanovich, 34, not as high as he used to be. I'm still in on these guys.
And they've never had all their guys together for more than like two weeks.

Speaker 1 So when everybody comes back, I don't think they're a trade team

Speaker 1 to try to get a better asset.

Speaker 1 But I think they're going to be like around 44, 45 wins. That's where I have them penciled in just because the East is going to really start tanking.

Speaker 1 That brings to the next category, secretly scary round one opponents. You could talk yourself into Atlanta being there, but Indiana number 15, definitely.
They're 22 and 19.

Speaker 1 They're 11th in pace this year. They were second last year.
So they're a little slower. I think that's Siakam related.
They're ninth in offense this year. They were second last year.

Speaker 1 But the last 15 games, they're fourth in offense. They've had no knee smith for 35 games.
Halburn's had a weird year. And every time it seems like he gets going, something happened.

Speaker 1 He just hurt his hamstring. In general, I like this team.
And I like what I've seen from Walker the last couple of weeks from them.

Speaker 1 I want to see this team in March. This team is like a pause button.
Let's see what you look like on March 10th. And then San Antonio is the other team like that.
They're 19 and 20.

Speaker 1 They're always hanging around these games, and they haven't quite figured out how to close them. I think last night was a really good example

Speaker 1 against Memphis, which was an awesome game. They played the most fun game of the season against Denver a couple Fridays ago.
That was the Wemby is officially here.

Speaker 1 We knew he was already here, but he's officially here now. Game where Jokic praised him afterwards and talked about how he was generationally special.
Really cool moment. Wemby's 25-11,

Speaker 1 four assists, four blocks a game. Their defense is sixth in the the last 15, which is why you have to consider them a scary playoff team.

Speaker 2 Wemby

Speaker 1 just,

Speaker 1 we should have a different Defensive Player of the Year award now because he should just get it every year.

Speaker 1 We should actually have the number two guy should get a separate award. Nobody's ever winning this award again as long as until Wemby is like 35, assuming he stays healthy.

Speaker 1 He's, I was talking about him with somebody yesterday. He's a foot longer than everybody realizes when they're they're playing.

Speaker 1 And over and over, one of the most fun things about watching him is every

Speaker 1 game, there's four or five moments where somebody is in the paint and they think they're going to get him or they think they're going to shoot a floater or they think they're going to get a layup past him.

Speaker 1 And they just forget he's got this extra foot that his body goes up. And they're always like, oh, and even as they're shooting it, he's going up and they're realizing mid-shot.

Speaker 1 Oh, God, he's going to block this. And they can't stop it because their body is already committed to it.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 1 he's the fact that he's growing like he is, which is not surprising. And then Castle has shown some

Speaker 1 stuff like he did last night against Memphis. Castle, I think the second half of the year is worth watching as how, what's his ceiling?

Speaker 1 This is a terrifying round one team. I don't want to see Wemby in a series, period.
Like there was a play last night

Speaker 1 in the fourth quarter where he ended up with the ball on the left side of the foul line, where if he turned into the paint, he could have shot a jump hook. And he never goes there.

Speaker 1 He's always around the three-point line. They always run stuff with him 25 feet from the basket.

Speaker 1 And in this play, he had the ball because a play broke down and they gave it to him on top of the foul line. And the other team immediately panicked.

Speaker 1 The point guard came down and doubled him. Then he turned into the lane.
The third guy came in. So now he's being triple teamed.

Speaker 1 And then somebody back cut and he was able to pass the guy and get a layup. And it made me think: like when he realizes that the foul line is where he needs to be, that's his spot.

Speaker 1 The same way Nowitzki realized it, the same way Duncan figured out his spot. I talked about this with Kurt Goldsbury a couple of weeks ago.

Speaker 1 What's Wemby's? What are his spots on the floor?

Speaker 1 That left side of the foul line where he can turn and he can either shoot a little 15-footer or he can put his head down into the paint, jump hook, or pass to a cutter, but everything is coming with his right hand.

Speaker 1 He can hold the ball up like it's a fucking grape.

Speaker 1 That's the key to Wemby, I think, going forward.

Speaker 1 If he figures out that spot, plus he has the top of the key and the ability to shoot threes, those two things combined, I just think he's going to be an absolute bitch in the playoff.

Speaker 1 And I'll tell you something else. This is the number one,

Speaker 1 holy shit, I can't believe they traded for Jimmy Butler team. Where the Spurs just say, fuck it.
We have, this guy's the sixth best guy in the league. Maybe we should see what's up.

Speaker 1 Would they do that with their culture? I don't know. This is also a holy shit they traded for Zion team, which if I was the Spurs, that would be the guy I targeted.

Speaker 1 Bring him into our organization, our culture, put him with Wemby. Now this is the most terrifying circle on anyone's schedule.
It's like, oh, my God, we have to play Wemby and Zion today.

Speaker 2 All right.

Speaker 1 Next category, Punchers Chance. Minnesota.
I can't rule them out yet. They're 21 and 19.
I have them 12th.

Speaker 1 They're up to fifth in defense. They were first last year, but now they're fifth, so that's better.

Speaker 1 Here's the thing:

Speaker 1 they finally realized something that I have

Speaker 1 touted on this podcast many, many times over the years and in my column. And it's something I just instinctively believe in.
Just play your best five guys. Stop worrying about positions.

Speaker 1 Oh, we need somebody who's people always do this with point guards, where it's like, well, that guy looks like a point guard. Mike Conley, godspeed, great career.
Really enjoyed him.

Speaker 1 Incredible teammate. Everybody loves him.
It's over.

Speaker 2 He's,

Speaker 2 he, it happens.

Speaker 1 This is what happens to point guards. He's done.

Speaker 2 It's a wrap.

Speaker 1 So they realized a couple weeks ago, we should just play DeFincenzo and not have a point guard. And Defincenzo is reinvested and has been playing really well, and they're playing better.

Speaker 1 There's a Conley with Randall where that can get them to about 43 million. They'd have to take somebody back who makes less less than that.
I don't know if they'd even trade Conley.

Speaker 1 There's no trade for him straight up because he's got another year after this one.

Speaker 1 But there's still a move with them. And part of that move has to be maybe get Julius Randall out of here.
The thing with the Towns trade, which I think has just worked out horribly for them,

Speaker 1 and this was the worst case scenario of the trade, which was that it boxed them in. Nobody really wants Randall.
Now they had to re-sign Conley. Nobody wants him.

Speaker 1 But it was a financial trade. And it's yet another reason why Glenn Taylor is one of the five worst NBA owners we've had.

Speaker 1 The move to trade towns and then extend Gobert to try to get him on a cheaper deal was just a fucking double whammy. Like, you can't bounce back from that.

Speaker 1 And the lesson, as always, is A-Rod is a loser.

Speaker 2 The Sleeper,

Speaker 1 number 11, Orlando.

Speaker 1 They're 28th offensively. There's only two teams in the league worse per 100 possessions than Orlando.
And yet, they're four games over 500. Their defense and

Speaker 1 their camaraderie and their feistiness and their competitiveness has just carried them in all these games.

Speaker 2 They're

Speaker 1 opposing, rebounding,

Speaker 2 they're first.

Speaker 1 Teams are only 40.6 rebounds a game against them. So they're dominating the boards.
They're great against the three. Teams are 31% against them with the three.

Speaker 1 And they get steals. They get all this stuff.
The zombie magic. Unfortunately, they can't shoot and they can't score.
Paolo came back.

Speaker 1 Franz is eventually coming back, and nobody wants to play this team. They're six seeds, seven seed, eight seed.
I don't want to see them.

Speaker 1 If the Celtics are the three seed and Orlando's sixth seed, I'm bummed. That's a really hard team to play.

Speaker 1 It did make me think, though, this is a good example of NBA depth being deeper in a significant way than it was 13 years ago.

Speaker 1 You're talking about players like 75 to 300 are so much much better than they were in the early 2010s. Like they have De Silva.
Oh, let's just throw him in. He can,

Speaker 1 he's not even playing. Now he's in there and we're going to him in crunch time.
Patadzi, I think that's how you say his name. Isaac, Cole Anthony, Anthony Black.
These guys are all good.

Speaker 1 I was looking at the 2012 Celtics, a team that was up 3-2 in the Eastern Conference Finals with a chance to go to the finals.

Speaker 1 This was their five through 10 guys in that series. Michael Pietras, Brandon Bass, Keon Dooling, Marquise Daniels, Greg Steemsma, and Ryan Hollins.

Speaker 2 That was our bench.

Speaker 1 The league is way better now.

Speaker 1 Number 10, the Clippers.

Speaker 1 Still can't get a feel for if this team is a contender or not. They're the league's best coach, solid team.

Speaker 1 The

Speaker 1 bottom seven offense, top five defense.

Speaker 1 They have a pretty good home court advantage now. They have Kawhi

Speaker 1 at least at the point where I'm interested to see where it is in March and April. They have this Norm Powell jumping from 14 points a game to almost 24 at age 31, which I think we need a new award.

Speaker 1 I would get rid of clutch player. I never know how to vote that.
I would replace it with the Tommy from Goodfellows. Look at this fucking guy.
That would be my award.

Speaker 1 And Norm Powell would win because I have no idea how we went from 14 to 24, but we did.

Speaker 1 Harden is interesting because on the one hand, he's one of the reasons that they've overachieved.

Speaker 1 On the other hand, a lot of his best games seem to come against shit defenses or mediocre teams.

Speaker 1 And then the worst games, if you really watch carefully, it's like against Houston, OKC, San Antonio, Boston, Minnesota. So there's some fool's gold with the Hardin pace, 35% from three, 44% on twos.

Speaker 1 He seems like he's the same, but he's not. He can still give you a good quarter, but not a whole game.
And they really need Kawhi back for me to take them seriously.

Speaker 1 So that's the last non-contender for me until we see with Kawhi. All right, next group, definitely lurking.
Milwaukee. I have them 9th, 21, and 17.
They still have Giannis.

Speaker 1 That's it.

Speaker 1 They're shooting threes way better than I think anyone expected. They're in the top three there, really good in corner threes.

Speaker 1 And I don't want to see them in the playoffs, if that's okay, because that's the 3-6, possibly, if it's Boston, Milwaukee. I don't want to see Milwaukee, I don't see Orlando.

Speaker 1 Actually, the way Boston's playing, I don't want to see anybody, but um, they're lurking. Dallas is lurking.
I'm not willing to make any sort of big judgment with Dallas. Luca's missed 19 games.

Speaker 1 Kyrie with some back stuff that's a little scary because he's been in the league for a while and he's a guard. And I always worry about aging guards hitting their early mid-30s.

Speaker 1 This is a let's see in March team for me. Also, not a lot of moves, but um,

Speaker 1 Luca turns 26 next month.

Speaker 1 Just pointing that out. Usually, you have your Apex season, age 27, age 28.
So, we're in range, and it's not this year, but it's a wait-and-see team for me. Then, Houston, number seven.

Speaker 1 You could talk me into Houston being fifth. You could talk me into them being 12th because I don't think there's an extra gear.
I think they're here, and they're here every game.

Speaker 1 And when we get to the playoffs, they're still going to be here.

Speaker 1 They don't have the ability to do this because offensively, it's just too choppy. They're really keeping their fingers crossed with Jalen Green.
Now, I watch a lot of Houston.

Speaker 1 I really, really, really like watching Houston. We talked about it.
We're going to talk about it with Joel Anderson in a second.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 1 the Jalen Green piece is the piece. 43% field goal, 35% threes, 2.6 assists, 4.2 free throw attempts.
I'm just reading those stats because this is your crunch time guy.

Speaker 1 And the odds are he's not going to score or create a shot from somebody else in the biggest moments of the game. So that's one, one, at least not yet.
He's young. Maybe it, maybe it's in there.

Speaker 1 And then Van Vleet's the other one, who's 15 points a game, six to six. His clutch numbers are probably the worst in the league.
And those are kind of their two options at the end of games. So

Speaker 1 it just turns into a rock fight. And the rock fight recipe, they're third to last in three-point shooting, 28th.
They're first in rebounds. And it's just a rock.

Speaker 1 You watch the last five minutes and it's like watching 90s basketball again. So,

Speaker 1 you know,

Speaker 1 could they turn Van Viet and a bunch of stuff into Fox? I don't think Sacramento, if I'm Sacramento, I'm not trading Fox, but that's the only way this changes, I think. Otherwise, I'm fine.

Speaker 1 Joel and I talk about it in the next segment. I'm fine with Houston.
Just, hey, this is great. We're a top four seed.
Let's see what happens in the playoffs. Let's see if Jalen Green has another gear.

Speaker 1 Let's see what Shingoon can do. Jabari Smith.

Speaker 1 Let's just see what this looks like for a year, and then we'll decide in July who we are. I think that's the move.

Speaker 1 The contenders, I have six contenders.

Speaker 1 Number one is Memphis, who's top seven offense defense.

Speaker 1 Brandon Clark's back.

Speaker 1 Angry Jaws back. Duncan on Wemby last night, even though it didn't count, still fun.
Their bench is just, I've never seen anything like this bench.

Speaker 1 Brandon Clark, Huff, Aldama, Wells, Kennard, Edie, Laravia, Pippin.

Speaker 1 I mean, sometimes a couple of those guys will start, but they, they just can survive an injured to anybody in the team for a week and you don't even notice.

Speaker 1 The Loravia contract was weird where they did the Jalen Smith thing, didn't renew it. And now

Speaker 1 I guess he's a trade piece, but he's playing really well.

Speaker 1 I want to shout out Wells.

Speaker 1 I used to do when my fingers worked and I had a column. I used to have my Bill Simmons all-stars for random guys in the league.
I just love.

Speaker 2 I love Wells.

Speaker 1 Wells, watch Memphis and watch if the other team has, you know, a really good swing.

Speaker 1 And Wells is a lot of times the guy guarding the swing and really being a pain in the ass. But that guy, there's something there with Wells.

Speaker 1 And that's why when you think about, like, I've heard Cam Johnson mentioned with them, and they could easily trade Marcus Smart and Loravia for Cam Johnson, throwing some picks and

Speaker 1 improve that Marcus Smart start.

Speaker 1 I would want to see what I have with these guys for another couple of weeks before I think about a trade. And the team seems like they have good chemistry.
They really like each other.

Speaker 1 There's a regular season versus playoffs conundrum with them that

Speaker 1 the team in the regular season is perfect with the depth. But in the playoffs, when you have to, when the same team is seeing you six, seven times in two weeks, is there an extra gear?

Speaker 1 It's the same issue Houston has. Morant.
Plays three, DMP, plays five, misses eight, plays one, DMP, plays five, DMP, plays two and a half, gets hurt, DMP, plays three, misses five.

Speaker 1 This is, he's just not on the floor enough, and that's why it's the hardest to take them seriously when we have to think about, can they win four straight playoff friends?

Speaker 1 We do not have evidence that Morant can play for two months in a row. So until we do, I have them as a pseudo-contender.

Speaker 1 I do want to mention Jaron Jackson's been awesome this year, and I loved watching him go at Wemby last night. He really,

Speaker 1 he's one of those guys who, when he's going against Sabonis, Davis, Wemby, like you really could see him being like, I'm taking the challenge tonight. Denver, number five.
Let's go. Jokic,

Speaker 1 24 and 16, fourth in offense.

Speaker 1 Their three-point shooting is still abysmal. They're bottom three in the league, but Murray is starting to show signs.

Speaker 1 As always, online criticism works. No, TV criticism, maybe that works, but Murray does look a little bit better.

Speaker 1 Jokic has been,

Speaker 1 you know, they're 25-plus points better when he's out there versus when he's not out there.

Speaker 1 The Wemby-Jokic battle two Fridays ago was the highlight of the year.

Speaker 1 He's doing stuff offensively that doesn't seem conceivable. It seems like it's out of like the 1962 season.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 1 right now, I don't think he's the MVP because of what SGA is doing and what he means to that OKC team.

Speaker 1 But what's changed is now they're a top four seed.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 1 whatever happens these next two months, maybe he can play himself into that combo.

Speaker 1 They

Speaker 1 have a GM and coach that famously doesn't seem great. I've heard that they don't talk.
I find that hard to believe, but it's the worst-kept secret in the league.

Speaker 1 There was a thing where they presented Malone with some sort of win sting, and Calvin Booth is the GM, and he presented this jersey.

Speaker 1 And I was like studying the clip because I was like, I thought these guys didn't interact.

Speaker 1 I love that Russell Westbrook is relevant on this team. And they really needed him.
They needed him when Murray was kind of, you know, flaming out a little bit there for a while.

Speaker 1 They needed him in days when Aaron Gordon, when he got hurt,

Speaker 1 they just needed his energy, his rebounding, how weird he is, the fact that he just puts up stats. And he's been really good for them.

Speaker 1 Like, I think he's been way outkicked his coverage of what they ever could have expected with Westbrook. But

Speaker 1 I wrote down

Speaker 1 putting him on this Jokic team. I'm not sure if it's like Daniel Day-Lewis in an Apatow comedy or Will Farrell in a Paul Thomas Anderson movie, but it's so weird.
I'm kind of into it.

Speaker 1 It's just constantly weird. There's a lot of no-no-no Russ shots with like three minutes left where he just decides I'm going to take this corner three.

Speaker 1 But he plays really hard, and it really seems like Jokic likes him. So I think he's been a bonus.
I think he's kind of saved them in some respects because he's not afraid and he puts up stats.

Speaker 1 Number four, the Knicks.

Speaker 1 The Towns trade is just amazing.

Speaker 1 Just an incredible trade. I know their defense dropped, but just when you think like the two assets they gave up versus the one they got back and how great he's been, it's an amazing trade.

Speaker 1 25 and 14, 55%, 45% from three.

Speaker 1 Really has a chance if we were doing the old school

Speaker 1 center forward guard for all NBA, really has a chance to be second team all NBA, might make second team NBA anyway.

Speaker 1 I think I'd rather have him than Anthony Davis at this point, as crazy as that sounds. He's younger and I just think he's more impactful day to day.

Speaker 1 The Tibbs stuff is the thing to watch. The minutes that he's putting on these dudes last night, overtime,

Speaker 1 he's just hard played 49 minutes. Brunson's playing 40 plus minutes in really hard games and also doing two-thirds of the stuff offensively.
And I just feel like he's going to burn these dudes out.

Speaker 1 And as a Celtics fan, this is where I take my basketball analyst part out. Just as a Celtics fan, please, Tibbs, continue to play these guys 40-plus minutes a game.
Thank you.

Speaker 1 The Celtics, number three, 28-12,

Speaker 1 second offense, sixth defense.

Speaker 1 Started out 16-3. They are 7-7 in their last 14 games.

Speaker 1 So what's going on?

Speaker 2 Well,

Speaker 1 you win the title, and it could go one of two ways.

Speaker 1 You have a huge chip on your shoulder, and it's like, we got the bullseye, come get us. And you just kick everyone's ass.
That would be be like the 92 bulls.

Speaker 1 Or then, the more typical way it goes is you got a little bit of an on-off switch. You feel like you can still turn it on, and it's going to be there when it needs to be there.

Speaker 1 The Celtics had a road trip the other night where the first two games were Houston and Minnesota, and they just played really well.

Speaker 1 And it was, it was one of those road trips where it's like, all right, we still got it. And then they immediately fell apart after and uh lost some games.
They're losing games at home.

Speaker 1 They're not shooting nearly as well. Like last year,

Speaker 1 they were 39% on threes and 49% just field goal in general. So very close to where Cleveland is this year.
This year, they're 46 and 36.

Speaker 1 So it's not dramatic, but it's a little dramatic. It's three points a game.
They don't rebound as well as they did last year. They were second and rebounding last year.
They're ninth this year.

Speaker 1 Tatum has a way bigger rebounding burden than he used to. And then, and white.
White has just really fallen off the last 20 games, and I think he's hurt. And I think he's been hurt for a month plus.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I just think he's playing hurt because he was incredible the first five weeks and he hasn't been. Drew's older.
Drew is a little more hit or miss than maybe he was last year.

Speaker 1 I'm still not worried.

Speaker 1 But what worries me is this. Last year was a cakewalk to the finals.
It wasn't their fault. It was just the way it played out.

Speaker 1 If they fall to a three seed, potentially that's Milwaukee or Orlando in round one. Milwaukee is Giannis.

Speaker 1 Orlando potentially defensively could be a real issue for them, especially if you watch the the stagnant Celtics offense lately.

Speaker 1 Knicks round two,

Speaker 1 not having home court. Cleveland round three, no home court.

Speaker 1 It's like night and day compared to last year.

Speaker 2 So there's stuff,

Speaker 1 you know, KP's just coming back in a real way. Tatum's been stupendous.
He's fifth in scoring, 18th in rebounding, plays his ass off every night,

Speaker 1 plays defense.

Speaker 1 He's just a top five guy in the league by any calculation.

Speaker 1 Jalen shooting numbers are down. So it's all little stuff.

Speaker 1 And I'm willing to say it's more in the camp of we won last year. We're kind of hibernating until the playoffs.
I don't love it, though, with a younger team. And I don't love the white stuff at all.

Speaker 1 I want to really know what's going on with them. The schedule is rough.
They really need that two seed. And if I'm the Knicks,

Speaker 1 if I'm the Knicks, I'm playing Jalen Brunson. and Hart 48 minutes a game trying to get that two seed.
I think that's what they should do.

Speaker 2 Wink, wink.

Speaker 1 Cleveland, number two, 34 and five.

Speaker 1 First offense, 10. They're basically the 2021 Celtics.
They've basically recreated what that Celtics team was. They're 50%

Speaker 1 on field goals, 40% from threes. They can play defense.
The Celtics had those two forwards that were a huge mismatch for everyone, Brown and Jalen.

Speaker 1 The Cavs more have that same thing with the guards, with Mitchell and Garland. What's crazy is they really, really, really played the minutes stuff well.
Mitchell's 31 a game.

Speaker 1 Moby's 30 and a half, Garland's 30.3, and Allen's 29.

Speaker 1 And what's that record? 34 and 5. Those guys are sitting for one-third of every game.
They're killing teams, and it's very similar to Boston last year.

Speaker 1 And I said this a couple weeks ago, I'll say it again. I take them really seriously.
I do not think this is a regular season team. I think they're really good.

Speaker 1 And I think Mitchell is ready for a bigger moment.

Speaker 1 And Mitchell might, if you're doing a draft of all the guys this year, when we get to the playoffs who might have started here and went up to here, like Jalen Brown last year, Mitchell's the number one candidate, and I would have Wemby number two.

Speaker 1 Just while we're here, things you're not allowed to say on pregame shows about Cleveland or OKC anymore.

Speaker 1 People got to start talking about SGA.

Speaker 2 We're talking.

Speaker 1 People got to start realizing how good Donovan Mitchell is. We know.

Speaker 1 People got to start talking about Jalen Williams.

Speaker 2 We are.

Speaker 1 People got to start talking about Evan Mobley.

Speaker 2 We are.

Speaker 1 People got to give more props to the job Sam Presti has done.

Speaker 2 We have.

Speaker 1 People got to take OKC more seriously. We are.
They're the favorites on FanDuel.

Speaker 1 Which takes me to OKC, the favorite, 33-6.

Speaker 1 First in defense by a lot. This is one of the great defenses, regular season-wise, anyone has put together.
They force turnovers at an absurd rate.

Speaker 1 Everybody seems to say the only real weakness they have is opponents can rebound on them a little bit. They've shown the ability to come back in games from double digits.

Speaker 1 They did against Minnesota and the Clippers and the Knicks and the Celtics, which I think is significant.

Speaker 1 Chet, I don't know when he comes back, but they're doing all this without Chet. And when Chet comes back, this becomes a nightmare team.

Speaker 1 I don't think they make a trade.

Speaker 1 My guess is they don't. If they made a trade, they'd probably try to improve the Wiggins spot or the Isaiah Joe spot.
And I just don't think Presty rolls that way.

Speaker 1 If you go back and you look at the KD Russ Hardin era, Hardin was really the only trade he made during a five, six years stray. He did the Jeff Green Perkins.

Speaker 1 That was pretty early before they made the finals. And then he did the Hardin trade, which was a financial trade.
But for the most part, he's a continuity guy.

Speaker 1 And I think they roll with what they have. Their playoffs could look like round one, maybe it's San Antonio.
Maybe it's the Lakers. Maybe it's the Kings or the Warriors.

Speaker 1 Round two, Denver or Dallas.

Speaker 1 Round three, Memphis or Houston.

Speaker 1 And I don't see anybody beating these dudes. And the biggest reason is SGA, who is out alpha the following guys head-to-head just this season.

Speaker 1 45 against Hardin, 45 against Halburton, 40 against Ant, 39 against Luca, 36 against LeBron, 35 against Curry, against Boston and Tatum. He had 33, 11, and 6.
Played the Knicks twice, 39 and 33.

Speaker 1 Best player in the league this season.

Speaker 1 He's got to be the MVP because he's meant the most to the best team in the league. Now, you could say, well, why didn't we do this with Tatum, Mais Jerry?

Speaker 1 He's just been more impactful day to day than Tatum is. And I can't believe this is the guy I watched as a kid on the Clippers as a rookie.

Speaker 1 I never in a million years would have thought that this would become one of the best, most creative scoring guards I've ever seen.

Speaker 1 Him and Brunson. Watching those guys just over and over again get the shots they want and create the shots they want against these defenses that are designed to stop them is pretty nuts.

Speaker 1 Is it going to work in a series?

Speaker 1 It really depends on Jalen Williams.

Speaker 1 That's going to be it.

Speaker 1 It's because at some point during a seven-game series, you're going to try to take out SJA and you're going to send second guys at him and you're going to make other team and you're going to make the three-point shooting beat you and you're going to put the hand, the ball in the hands of Jalen Williams.

Speaker 1 And you're going to say, you know what, dude?

Speaker 1 Go for it. If you beat us, so be it.

Speaker 1 And from what we've seen him in the playoffs last year and even in the NBA Cup this year, I'm not positive he can do it, but that's the play against them once we get to the playoffs.

Speaker 1 They're the best team in the league. I think they have a legitimate chance at 70 games because of their depth, 70 wins because of their depth.

Speaker 1 So could they get to 70, 12, 71, 11? It's possible because night to night, game to game with how good their defense is and their scoring and their three-point shooting, I think they can get there.

Speaker 1 Anyway, that is our half-season power poll. Coming back, we're going to talk to Joel Anderson from the ringer and and then eventually Joel Anderson and Van Lathan about college football.

Speaker 1 See you in a second.

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Speaker 1 All right, Joel Anderson is here.

Speaker 2 We have a whole long history.

Speaker 1 This is, how many, how many times did we almost work together before we actually decided to work together?

Speaker 2 So, I definitely came down to the old studio in like 2016. And you guys showed me around.
I did the whole thing. We went to lunch, didn't we? Didn't we go to lunch that time too?

Speaker 1 I thought there was a 2014 too. Wasn't there a Grantland era?

Speaker 1 We definitely talked then. We talked in 16.
We talked in 20.

Speaker 2 We're talking

Speaker 1 for whatever reason never worked out. And now all of a sudden you're with the ringer and we couldn't be happier.

Speaker 2 Can I say, can I say something about that too? So, yeah. So, you know, like I was

Speaker 2 in between jobs a few months ago, and I was about to accept another offer, right? And I, I, I reached out to Connor Nevins, people at the Ring of Doe Connor, because Connor was my editor at ESPN.

Speaker 2 And I was like, hey, man,

Speaker 2 you know, I got this offer and it's exciting, but I just want to make sure that Bill, like, you know, like, are you guys sure that this isn't going to work out?

Speaker 2 And Connor was like, yeah, man, you should probably just go ahead. It's fine.
Like, you know, Bill's busy or whatever. And so then I texted you right after that.

Speaker 2 I was like, I don't know if, I don't know if Connor's right about this. And you were like, what? Huh?

Speaker 2 I thought, you know, then, and then everything started rolling. And here we are today.

Speaker 1 It's so funny. Yeah, because we had talked, as usual, I probably forgot to follow up two weeks later.

Speaker 1 So anyway, it finally worked out.

Speaker 1 But we always felt like dating back to the Grantland days, you know, sports culture, real life stuff, like we always liked the people who dabbled into all these different circles.

Speaker 1 You're like the epitome of that. You care about all these different crazy, all the stuff you've done in the past.

Speaker 1 What was the...

Speaker 1 The best narrative podcast. What was the one you were proudest of of all the stuff you did?

Speaker 2 Oh, definitely Slowburn 6 to LA rides.

Speaker 2 Just because I was fascinated by LA as a city. And it emerged from my reporting on season three on Biggie and Tupac.

Speaker 2 And I was just like, oh, if I ever got a chance to tell that story, which is part of the reason 2020 got held up, right? Yeah.

Speaker 2 That got put in my face. And I was like, well, I have to do this.
Like, this is like a passion project.

Speaker 2 And, you know, like humanizing Rodney Keen,

Speaker 2 just talking about the divisions in the city, like how it was more complicated than people thought.

Speaker 2 I couldn't wait to do that. So that was probably the thing that I'm most proud of.
I did, you know, I did a season on

Speaker 2 Clarence Thomas a couple of years later, which was more critically acclaimed, but my favorite is season six of Slowburn, the LA Rides.

Speaker 1 What was the most surprising thing you learned about Tupac and Biggie when you worked on that one?

Speaker 2 I think the degree of intimacy between them,

Speaker 2 it makes sense in retrospect how things got out of control, right? Because that kind of hatred, like that kind of anger only comes about when you know somebody and they're like your friend, right?

Speaker 2 And they were really friends. Like Tupac had a lot to do with Biggie becoming a celebrity and like, you know, getting accepted out on the West Coast.

Speaker 2 And, you know, he Tupac wanted to sign Biggie to his record label. Right.
Like, and Biggie was like,

Speaker 2 but then Tupac was like, yeah, I don't know. This diddy guy, Puffy, he knows what he's doing.
You probably should stick with him. But

Speaker 2 we could collaborate. Yeah, I mean,

Speaker 2 right. Yikes, right.
Right. I mean, in some ways it worked.
And in some ways, you know, it probably is best we didn't get to see how that was going to turn out in the end. But yeah, man.

Speaker 2 So that part of it was the thing. I knew that they had been cool, but I didn't know how cool.
And that was sort of a revelation.

Speaker 2 And it explained a lot about what happened after once I learned that, I think.

Speaker 1 How many years before somebody does the Drake Kendrick version of that podcast?

Speaker 1 I mean, do we need time to pass? Like, what's the right amount of time to actually let everything settle and then dive into it?

Speaker 2 Right, because in so much with Drake is unsettled, like, we don't know where he's actually going to, he hasn't released any, he hasn't really released any music.

Speaker 2 He hasn't really presented himself in front of the public again. Um, actually, I'm sort of fascinated by like what Kendrick is going to do at the Super Bowl is like the LA guy, right?

Speaker 2 Like, like he probably had one show in mind. And now, after all this, you know, the events of the past week, I I wonder if he's going to have to broaden it or sort of shift focus.

Speaker 2 But yeah, because of all that, because we haven't had, their careers haven't continued. Like, that's, then it has to be at least 10 years.
Don't you think we got to give it 10 when Drake's almost 50?

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 1 I don't know what the right level of distance is. And especially in the documentary era, it really feels like that shortened.
You know, like the last dance to me, what was that, 22 years? Yeah.

Speaker 1 From the last season, that was kind of the perfect amount of nostalgia time.

Speaker 2 It really was. It really really was because you want you want people

Speaker 1 you want them to have enough distance that they can really say shit after the fact right in the interviews and the last dance is a good example certainly had all that but also there's a whole new generation moving up that wants to learn more about it so yeah i i just feel like that window is shortened now now it's like 10 12 years and not 20.

Speaker 2 absolutely well yeah the thing is and if you wait for too long somebody else is going to do it and they may screw it up and like and then it's like well you really don't want to go over that ground again, right?

Speaker 2 Like, it's already out there, but then it's like maybe not the ideal project at the end of the day. So, yeah.

Speaker 2 Let me ask you about the last dance thing then. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Like, don't you think that like they kind of, I felt like because of all the fallout as a result of that, like, like, I don't know what the hell is going on with Scotty Pippen.

Speaker 2 Like, anytime I see Scotty Pippen in a video or a Reel Now, like, I feel sorry for him.

Speaker 2 And I don't know how much of this emanates from what came out of the last dance or whatever.

Speaker 2 You know, he's gotten divorced, but I feel like they almost have to revisit and re-interview some of these people because I feel like there was a lot of fallout from the last dance.

Speaker 2 And it's like, I feel like that story kind of got sparked back up, and I need some sort of closure on a lot of these things.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think Isaiah probably has more of a case for feeling like he was completely betrayed by it. You know, he just comes off like the villain.

Speaker 1 Pippin's more complicated because they tell the whole story about, you know, 94 when MJ's gone and he doesn't want to come back in the game. That was a big part of his legacy.

Speaker 1 Like when, when I wrote about him in my book a million years ago, a lot of what I wrote in the Pippin part was about it's unfair that that moment framed his career when he was like the most selfless teammate, awesome guy to play with, one of the best 30 players ever.

Speaker 1 But I think if you, if you really watch The Last Dance Again, the last episode, it circles back. and talks about how much pain he was in in the 98 finals.

Speaker 1 But part of me wonders, did Pippi even, Pippin even finish it? Because by the end of it, it's like, it's like heroic watching him go through this stuff.

Speaker 1 But I mean, big picture, what changed is I think people are so, sports people are so much more hesitant now to be in docs unless it's about them, unless they're the stars.

Speaker 1 You don't want to be the bad guy in a sports doc. I think the Isaiah thing.
Yeah, we dealt with it with the Celtics when we did this nine-part Celtics doc that's coming out in 2025.

Speaker 1 And 15 years ago, we would have gotten everybody. This time around,

Speaker 1 it's so much harder to get people.

Speaker 2 Really? Yeah. Oh, man.

Speaker 2 You can't tell me who's been a source of frustration here then, fans.

Speaker 1 Sadly, no. But

Speaker 1 it's just, I think, the way it is going forward because in the late 2000s, especially, nobody really knew what documentaries were.

Speaker 1 They weren't like, they weren't made like they are now, where it's like they're leading Netflix and they're leading HBO and whoever.

Speaker 1 So I think the stakes feel higher. And people either feel like if it's it's not about them or if they're not getting paid, they're, they just don't want to be in it.

Speaker 2 Let me tell you, that was the big problem with the Big E and Tupac.

Speaker 2 I'll just admit this on your show here. I did not like season three for Slowburn, like the Big E and Tupac, because so much of it was people not wanting to talk.

Speaker 2 Because first of all, people have talked about Big E and Tupac forever.

Speaker 2 Some people think they deserve their own documentary. And then, yeah, then other people are like, why would I talk about this if I'm not getting paid?

Speaker 2 And I feel like people have gotten sort of attuned to the idea that, like, all right, well, I've got this information. If you want it, I need something out of this for myself, right?

Speaker 2 Um, and actually, though, now that you mentioned it, I would watch the Scotty Pippen documentary, you know?

Speaker 1 Well, he, so his whole background, which they went into a little in the last dance, but you know, it's

Speaker 1 he was about as broke as it gets growing up as a kid. Like his, I think his dad was, uh, basically couldn't work, was handicapped.

Speaker 1 And right, um, so that kind of led to all the financial decisions he made where just trying to grab money, grab these extra long contracts where you're not getting paid as much, never being able to bet on yourself because you needed money so bad.

Speaker 1 And it was like this eight-year spin cycle for him, just bad contract after bad contract. And unfortunately with sports, like you make a couple bad decisions, you can't get out of it.

Speaker 1 Now we have the NBA where you have like Jimmy Butler or Bradley Beal stuck in situations they don't like, but they're making 50 million a year.

Speaker 2 So it's like, I don't really feel that bad for you. Yeah, I don't feel, yeah, I don't, you know, and also, I mean, you know, Jimmy, you could show up.
You could play. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 2 The thing, I call him Jimmy Sixseed. I'm like, well, you know, I can understand

Speaker 2 I could

Speaker 2 understand the heats problem here. They're like, well, you want to just kind of coast through the regular season.

Speaker 2 Like, why don't you take the responsibility of leading us to home court advantage in the playoffs once? Like, that would be cool. Wouldn't that be nice?

Speaker 2 Also, that would, you know, do the Arisons, whatever, a solid. I'm sure that would.
earn them a lot of money too for having playoff games in the first round.

Speaker 1 It's such a mid-2020s thing where it's like here on the one hand i see the case for jimmy like brought the team to the finals in 20 and 23 was expecting them to make some sort of upgrade it's not miami's fault i don't think necessarily that portland didn't want what they were offering for dame loward but they didn't get anybody else so he's doing the i don't not get enough help thing i kind of see it i also see the miami side of like we're paying you 50 million a year you're the best guy in the team we're paying you to be there, you know, for nine months a year.

Speaker 1 We don't want to have to wonder when you're playing or not. And why are you unhappy? So it's, it just feels like a bad marriage.
Like it's the classic bad sports marriage.

Speaker 2 Don't you think he would have been pissed if he had got, if they had gotten Dame too? Like now that we've seen Dame and I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll go back to Dame. It was the, uh, the Tokyo games.

Speaker 2 And I remember thinking, man. He looks not good out there.
I just, I didn't try.

Speaker 2 I liked it when they had Drew Holiday out there instead of him and I was like oh man He just I didn't know if he had just turned the corner in his career or what I was like I don't and so when he went to Milwaukee I remember thinking I don't know if that's I don't know if that's going to be the answer but okay we'll see and so if he went to Miami without Giannis I mean I don't I think they would have a lot more reasons to be pissed down there I remember making those points when he was being when he was being shopped to the different teams and then everybody was like you're just Celtics fan you don't want Miami to get dame.

Speaker 1 It's like, look,

Speaker 1 there's some evidence that he's an awful defensive player. He's also a little guy hitting his early mid-30s, which we have a lot of evidence with that, that that gets a little dangerous.

Speaker 1 I actually think he's been a little better in Milwaukee this year than I was expecting. But the Jimmy thing is in such a strange spot now because he also has this player option next year.

Speaker 1 So if you trade for him, you're also paying him next year. So it's a two-year commitment.

Speaker 1 It's his only leverage over Miami because if they don't trade him then he could just opt in and now they're paying him so now he's screwed up one year instead of two for them

Speaker 1 but that if you're miami you don't want to take a bad contract back right so if philly's like all right fine take paul george you can have him this year and the next three miami's gonna be like no way we're not taking paul george i i the thing is like they just have to kind of get over the idea like they're not going to win a championship now right i mean that's the thing i mean i get it

Speaker 2 They have to sort of take their medicine, I guess. Like, don't they have to be bad, but that is not a Pat Riley thing.
Like, he's not going to allow them to be bad.

Speaker 1 Yeah, because they have some good assets. And they're a little bit better than being in the middle, but

Speaker 1 they're not a top six playoff team. Right.
Hero's playing the best he's ever played. And if Jimmy comes back the way that he could actually play,

Speaker 1 they're pretty interesting. They're not going to make the finals again.

Speaker 1 But I don't, I don't, it's an unsolvable one because what you don't want to do is compound a mistake by taking somebody else's mistake. That's why Bradley Beale's never happened in a million years.

Speaker 1 But if Phoenix plays worse and worse,

Speaker 1 maybe now Durant becomes a possibility, you know, and at least you're taking advantage of somebody else's misfortune to get out of yours.

Speaker 2 Let me tell you something. I mean, as a Rockets fan, you know, I grew up in Houston.
Yeah. Please, please don't, please don't trade for KD.
Like, I just don't.

Speaker 2 I like our young core. Like, please, like, we have a lot of assets.
Please, I just want to rock with Amen, Jalen, Senguin. Like, I just want to see that with Ime.
And let's just go with that.

Speaker 2 Let's not do the KD thing because as great as he is, I just kind of feel like the days of him being able to elevate a team in quite that way are kind of over. So let's just, I like what we're doing.

Speaker 2 It's the only thing that makes me feel good about missing out on Wimby in the draft. So like, let's just, please, if Houston, if you can hear me, let's keep this roster.

Speaker 2 Let's just rock with it for a little bit longer and see what we can go with it. Please.
How close were you to Wimby?

Speaker 1 I forget. How many picks?

Speaker 2 I mean, two. i but i think that like i think they had what did they have the second best odds to get wimby or something like that right

Speaker 2 and they ended up picking they ended up picking third which is you know fine but um i'm not upset with the pick but obviously it's not it's not wimby like so so to recap you're not totally fired up you didn't get a generational super duperstar yeah exactly i mean i think that like what the rockets are doing is like the only thing that makes me feel good i'm like oh this is the kind of team they're really good they're young they can grow together also

Speaker 2 i feel like they're strong in a way that sort of could cause problems for wimby like this physical deep team yeah and i could see that causing wimby problems so i'm like okay like if we can keep this together then i'm fine with it but if not then like i'm just gonna yeah belabor missing out we got yao we got ralph sampson we got dream yeah i just kind of expected the wimby thing that's supposed to be us that's supposed to be the houston thing and we missed out on it yeah i forgot to i forgot about your Rockets connection.

Speaker 1 I think they're the most fascinating team to be a fake GM for when you just look at their assets.

Speaker 1 Because they're 26 and 12, you know, or at least when we're taping this on a Wednesday, every time I feel like they're going to maybe tail off a little bit, like Jabar Smith got hurt.

Speaker 1 And you think, all right, here we go. Cause this team is not a 26 and 12 team.
They last five minutes of a game, they can barely get a decent shot off. And it's going to dip.

Speaker 1 And then they just keep winning and winning. And they're really mentally tough.
They play good D.

Speaker 2 They have good coach.

Speaker 1 And I don't know what I would do. I don't know what the tweak is.

Speaker 2 Well, let me ask you, because you're the NBA expert here. Like, do you think, though, this is one of those examples of a team that is already sort of capped out on its, like

Speaker 2 they play really, they're young. You may can get them to play really hard in the regular season, but when it comes to the postseason, there may not be another gear for them.
There's not.

Speaker 2 At least right now. No, there's not.

Speaker 1 So the question you have to ask when you're in a situation like them is

Speaker 1 like OKC two two years ago they were like basically a 500 team they played really well together they had a certain ceiling to what they were doing and he was very hesitant of trading anything for it then last year

Speaker 1 same thing right they they ended up they really could have beaten dallas they could have made the finals but they were still really hesitant about making a move and then this year was when they made the move and i i think like if i was houston's conciliary

Speaker 1 unless i could get d'arren fox for van vleet and some picks like if that was really sitting there, you have to do that.

Speaker 1 Like if you can, if you can basically just change your point guard position, because Van Voiet, I, I admire the guy, he plays hard, he's an overachiever, but he's just, when he has the ball with three minutes left in a tight game, you, I don't have any confidence he's scoring.

Speaker 2 Right. Like nobody's scared of him.
You don't mind him having the ball, right? No.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So if they could get like a, like a Fox type level guy, like a Booker somehow became available. Um,

Speaker 1 that's the only thing I would think about. I want another year with Jalen Green because I still don't know what he is.

Speaker 2 Yep.

Speaker 1 Same thing with Jabari, who I think I like a little more than most. And then I think their number one asset is Thompson.

Speaker 1 Like if I'm just like, if I'm ranking their trade assets, I think he might be number one for me.

Speaker 2 I was so mad when they picked him, by the way, Bill. I was like, man, what the fuck? This overtime elite shit.

Speaker 2 I want this dog. Don't follow.
It did not feel good. But yeah, I love that dude so much, man.
He's such a, he's such a dog.

Speaker 2 And he's like, I mean, how many, I mean, it's very rare that he's on the floor and he's not the best athlete on the floor, which is crazy to say in the NBA, but that is legit. Yeah.
At least I think.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I know a couple people that have seen it, seen the Rockets in person this year separately in different cities. And all of them texted me after and were like, oh, my God.

Speaker 1 Like this guy athletically. And it was same feeling I got too, where it's like, just certain guys move differently.
Yeah, man. You know, where they, and this is a league of these awesome athletes.

Speaker 1 These are some of the best athletes we've produced as a country. And yet some guys still stand out.

Speaker 1 And he was one of the guys that you're watching going, man, it just feels like he's a split second faster, more athletic. He can bend in any way, more explosive.

Speaker 1 Like he's just, I don't know what his ceiling is, but from what I've seen so far, there's no reason to me that.

Speaker 2 like there's not like a pippin would be the ceiling for me and i don't think that's a crazy thing to say no not at all i mean he's i mean how old is he again he's like 20 yeah he's like 21 20 or 21 something like that yeah yeah man i mean if it's just there's so much growth left for his game um and i don't know like i don't know if you want to clear it out so that he can become like the alpha dog on your team well we don't know offensively we don't know is the shot ever going to be there scotty always

Speaker 1 You know, he was basically going to Michael Jordan basketball camp every day. So he, the IQ stuff from MJ kind of of eventually morphed, but he was always such a good playmaker and like passer.

Speaker 1 And, you know, he had a little weird post-up game. And I don't know if that stuff's in there, but the defensive athleticism stuff, like, if you're doing grades, he's A plus.

Speaker 2 A plus. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
No, I, I want to hold on to that guy forever.

Speaker 2 And I just, you know, I love, I love that, like, again, I don't, you know, maybe I could probably live without Dylan Brooks, but I understand like his role on a team like that. And right.

Speaker 1 It helps to create a culture, which which was totally different than it existed a couple years before but like well one fun thing that one fun thing that's happening with houston memphis oklahoma city and then i'm going to say half of minnesota but you have some real alpha e defensive teams athletes they're all like kind of around the same age range for the most part And when you watch League Pass, it'd be like, oh, Houston's playing Memphis.

Speaker 1 This game's going to be fucking awesome. You know, oh my God, Houston's OKC tonight.

Speaker 2 Oh, my God. I can't wait.

Speaker 1 so there's there's this little subset now of the league that's like basically the sons of lebron all of them were probably they don't even remember the nba when lebron wasn't in it and and they're

Speaker 2 it's something you know what i mean oh yeah absolutely well i was looking i mean like dude the southwest standings in the nba like san antonio is fourth man right they're fourth 19 and 19.

Speaker 2 and the fifth place team is the pelicans and i felt like if zion is right they can beat any of those teams any night too Right. Right.
They're 9-32. But like, if Zion is right, which is.

Speaker 1 I watched it last night. They beat somebody and Zion was,

Speaker 1 I don't know if they're auditioning him.

Speaker 2 I'm on the record.

Speaker 1 It's the most fun. The most fun trade that we can come up with in basketball right now is Zion to the Spurs.

Speaker 2 Oh, man. Come on.
No, I'm telling you.

Speaker 2 No, what? Put Zion.

Speaker 2 Zion with Wemby.

Speaker 1 Zion, trade their stuff, a couple picks.

Speaker 2 I don't want that.

Speaker 1 Put him in a different organization.

Speaker 2 Come on, get him the ball. You're out.
Why don't you like that? I could, I don't, because I don't, I don't like the Spurs. I don't want to hear their mouths.
Oh, no, but

Speaker 2 yeah, I don't want that

Speaker 2 to be that good stuff.

Speaker 2 That's terrifying. Yeah, I don't want that to happen.
I also feel like

Speaker 2 Zion looking up at Wimby and being like, man, this, look how this guy, how serious he takes his career. Like,

Speaker 2 they were talking about his dedication to a game when he was 17 years old over in

Speaker 2 learning two languages, learning how to become like a face of a league, basically. You Yeah, he's he's planned it all out.

Speaker 1 I wouldn't compare. This isn't an exact comparison because Randy Moss was better than Zion and Randy Moss did more stuff than Zion and he was healthier than Zion.

Speaker 1 But there was a moment when Randy Moss was on the Raiders that year and they were a dumpster fire.

Speaker 1 And, you know, everything was wrong. He wasn't playing that hard.

Speaker 1 And his asset. as a trade asset slipped to the point the Patriots stole him for like a fourth rounder.

Speaker 2 It was a fourth round pick. Yeah.

Speaker 2 All right, right.

Speaker 1 But they got him, and then he is immediately rejuvenated.

Speaker 1 I do wonder, like, if that happens, whoever gets Zion, if they could just get him in the right thing, would that be like the best trade you could make?

Speaker 2 I think that is like 90, like, I'm like 90% certain that's going to happen. Because I mean, it just,

Speaker 2 he did not want to go to New Orleans in the first place. It just felt like it was never going to work out.
And in New Orleans as a franchise, I feel like if you're CJ McCollum, you're a professional.

Speaker 2 Like, I'm just going to show up. It doesn't matter where I got a ball, like, I'm going to do it or whatever.
But, like, the expectations for Zion were so much more than that.

Speaker 2 And clearly, he thrived in a place where he was the star of the show and there was a lot of attention on him. I mean, it just felt like New Orleans is not where it needs to be.

Speaker 2 And also, the training staff, I don't know. Anyway, so

Speaker 2 what do you mean? I don't know.

Speaker 1 It's the worst organization in the league. That's a huge part of this.

Speaker 2 Yeah,

Speaker 2 I feel like it's pretty much guaranteed that if he goes someplace that he feels motivated to play and he's got a bunch of guys or dogs around him, I feel like it's a certainty that he's going to take off no matter where he goes.

Speaker 1 So, and he's at least showing flashes too, you know, like even in the playing game before he got hurt. Like, he's he was taking it to LeBron in a way that was unusual.

Speaker 2 He likes being that guy, yeah. And it's so it's clearly in there.
I think that it's unless unless he gets hurt, it's going to come out and it's going to come out somewhere else.

Speaker 2 It's just some places it's just not going to happen, dude. And like, I feel like we've seen enough of New Orleans now.

Speaker 2 It's like, it's just not going to happen down here, so it's time to go somewhere else.

Speaker 1 Yeah, well, I know New Orleans is bad for me when I'm there for four days, So I can't imagine when you're him with some of the vices that he has.

Speaker 2 Don't you? Well, I don't wanna. I find like, I feel like New Orleans is sad, though, too.
Like, I feel like I could be down there for three or four days, and then I got to kind of keep it moving.

Speaker 2 It's like Vegas. Yeah.
Vegas is fun for three days. This is like, it's, this is too much.

Speaker 1 The thing with him, this is like, these are the NBA players I grew up with where

Speaker 1 These guys, they have so much talent. They're so awesome.

Speaker 1 But they never find the right spot, right situation, whatever, and then it just never happens. Oh, Van Lathan's here.
He's going to join us.

Speaker 1 We'll take a quick break, come back and talk some college football with Van.

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Speaker 1 All right. Van Lathan is here.
He's joining us. We're in tough college football.
Yes. It's the first time you guys have been on a podcast together?

Speaker 2 Yeah, ever. Lottery.

Speaker 2 Likewise, man. Likewise.

Speaker 1 College football. I'm going to let you guys carry this.
I'm just going to be the point guard, set you up.

Speaker 1 I'm going to be like Reed Shepard in the G-League, just running fast breaks and reining threes.

Speaker 1 Before we have Joel's five favorite things for college football, before we do that, Notre Dame, Ohio State.

Speaker 1 Every person I know who gambles on college football is like, just throw Ohio State in a a parlay. It's a wrap.

Speaker 1 They're too big. They're bigger.
They're better. Like, this is done.
They were the eighth seed this year. Yeah.
Is this done? Does Notre Dame is there? Nobody believes in this case?

Speaker 2 I think Notre Dame probably has a lot of bulletin board material.

Speaker 2 People are on Ohio State like crazy. They have a ridiculously talented roster and they're peaking at the right time.
Right.

Speaker 2 However, I, despite all of the animus between LSU fans and Notre Dame fans online, I am not ready to say that Freeman and his staff up there in South Bend are not going to find a way to make this game competitive and not have a chance to win this game in the fourth quarter.

Speaker 2 I think that they will. What do you think, Joel? I definitely think it's going to be closer than people think.
But at the end of the day, your limitations are your limitations.

Speaker 2 Notre Dame can't pass, right? Like they can't pass the ball. And I feel like that's going to be a real problem in a game where, I mean, the thing about Ohio State,

Speaker 2 which was, we'll get into it in the list later, but somebody's supposed to slip free, right? Like Trayvion,

Speaker 2 you know, Quin Shawn, Jeremiah, Ameka, Carnell, somebody is going to bust loose. And like Notre Dame is going to have to do something other than put together a 13-place, 72-yard drive to keep up.

Speaker 2 And I just think eventually after a while, that takes a toll and they'll kind of fall behind.

Speaker 2 But I do, I agree with Van that it's going to be much closer and they're going to be a tougher out for Ohio State than people think.

Speaker 2 So I think what happened with me with Notre Dame was the last game, I think there were a lot of questions answered.

Speaker 2 Now, we could talk about Penn State and some of the limitations that Penn State has, particularly the explosiveness that they lack in their downfield passing game.

Speaker 2 But a lot of things that people, a lot of questions, shall I say, that people are asking about Notre Dame in the game, which was if they ever got behind, right, could they play from behind?

Speaker 2 Did the offense have enough wrinkles? Did they have dynamic enough talent on that side of the ball to get them back into a game where they couldn't play complimentary football, defense.

Speaker 1 Like a Pittsburgh Stayers situation? Exactly. We're down 14.
The game is now over.

Speaker 2 It's over.

Speaker 2 But they got down 10. Yeah.

Speaker 2 They got down 10, and Riley Leonard was even knocked out of the game, which honestly, I think kind of worked in Notre Dame's favor a little bit because they weren't really preparing for the backup quarterback to come in there and complete a couple of passes.

Speaker 2 And they played from behind.

Speaker 2 And they made enough plays in the passing game in that game against a quality, not quite as good as Ohio state defense maybe not but it's not too it's pretty comparable a quality penn state defense they made enough plays in the passing game to go win the game um they are facing an uphill battle but for some reason i think the game will be competitive yeah i i don't i don't if i don't i don't think i can't envision a scenario in which notre dame can get to 24 and that's why i don't think they can win and i feel like oh state can kind of f up and can can we we we can't curse here right i can say fuck it

Speaker 2 i can say fuck. I'm just like, shit, well, I know y'all curse, but I just, I'm not, I'm new here, right? All right, well, I think, I think, I think Ohio State can fuck around and get 24.

Speaker 2 Like, I mean, you know, they can just luck up into a couple, like you hit Jeremiah deep, you know, a drive or whatever.

Speaker 2 And I don't, I, Notre Dame, again, better than people think they're going to be, but I don't think they can get to 24.

Speaker 1 All right. Two follow-up questions about this.
One,

Speaker 1 Ohio State was the eight, the ranked eighth heading into the playoffs. So a year ago, they're not in the playoffs.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 So, now they're going to, they're heavily favored to win the title. So, what does that mean, big picture? Were we just doing this wrong the last 20 years?

Speaker 1 Do we have to go back and go through all the times when maybe the wrong team won?

Speaker 2 No, no, no. What does it mean?

Speaker 2 I don't think that Ohio State necessarily deserves to be the national champion. Like,

Speaker 2 by the standards of the champions that have come before them, they are a failure. They didn't beat their biggest rival.
They didn't win their conference championship.

Speaker 2 So, like, it that they win, like it redeems like the fuck-ups they had earlier in the season, but I don't think it means that they deserve to have been in the playoffs.

Speaker 2 Like it's just a circumstance of history that they're in the playoffs. But I don't, you know, like they're the best team, but they didn't live up to that during the year.

Speaker 2 And if they didn't make the playoffs, I don't think anybody would have lost any sleepovers.

Speaker 1 Well, counter, they lost two games by four points.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but I mean,

Speaker 2 well, we'll talk about it, but like, I mean,

Speaker 2 have you watched Michigan play this year?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I watched that game, and it was the announcers were shocked as as it was happening.

Speaker 2 I mean, yeah, what's your take? So, I think the dynamic depends on which version of college football that you believe in. So, if you believe the traditional college football

Speaker 2 sort of way of doing things that I was brought up on, and I'm sure Joel's brought up on too, which was the most deserving team won the national championship after a full body of work

Speaker 2 was examined, then Ohio State's not there. But

Speaker 2 what I think they were trying to move to by expanding the playoff was to to see

Speaker 2 if they could get to a situation where the best team wins

Speaker 2 the national championship. And that's on the field.
And that means that if you slip up a couple of Saturdays, right,

Speaker 2 it doesn't matter because if you have the best roster and you're playing the best at the right time, then you get a chance to prove it on the field. Right.

Speaker 1 So like that Michigan loss in the old system is catastrophic for them.

Speaker 2 Oh, well, it's over. Let's go.

Speaker 1 It goes to like one of the worst losses in the history of Ohio State.

Speaker 2 Well, let's go. No, it's not.
It's the worst loss that I can remember in that rivalry, but let's not even talk about Ohio State. Let's talk about Notre Dame that lost at home to northern Illinois.

Speaker 2 Right. Right.
So that is a disqualifying loss in most iterations of the old way of doing college football. It is not in this particular day.

Speaker 1 So is that better or worse?

Speaker 2 I mean, I guess it kind of depends on what you think. I wrote about this for theringer.com.
I know you did.

Speaker 2 And so what I would say is that if college football fans can sort of disabuse themselves, of like as Vance said, the most deserving notion, and it's like, well, NFL fans,

Speaker 2 when Brady and the Bucks won the Super Bowl,

Speaker 2 I mean, I don't know if anybody thought they were clearly the most deserving team or anything like that, but they won. They were the champion.
And so, like, NFL fans accept that.

Speaker 1 It's going to be like Washington with Jaden Daniels when he wins the Super Bowl in 30.

Speaker 2 Or it'll be like when a nine- and seven team beat an undefeated

Speaker 2 team. I didn't want to.
That was trying to be nice. Also, like that.
I blocked that out. I don't even remember that happening.
Is that the Patriots? All right. Sorry, Joel.
Go ahead.

Speaker 2 No, but no, but I'm with you on that. So if it's going to be like that, then, and we're going to become college fans, become NFL fans.

Speaker 2 I'll be like, all right, that happens to be the champion this year. But I kind of...
I guess as an older dude, I kind of like the

Speaker 2 every game, you know, like that loss in Michigan should count for something. Like it should be.
Now, in this way, it just made Ohio State mad.

Speaker 2 But it used to be that, oh, man, like that the whole program crumbles, Ryan Day has to go away. Caleb Downs is back in the portal, all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 2 And there's a cultural question in Columbus right now, too, with my Ohio State fans.

Speaker 2 And the question is, it sounds stupid to people who don't understand college football and don't understand the rivalry, but it's a question that's very much on the mind of people up there.

Speaker 2 And the question is, would you rather beat Michigan? Or would you rather win a national championship? Now, the answer seems obvious.

Speaker 2 There's no Ohio State fan right now on the precipice of winning a national championship that's going to say, oh, man, like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, this doesn't matter as much.

Speaker 2 But then, the day after

Speaker 2 the Michigan loss, the week after the Michigan loss, like when they were talking about Ryan Day, the way that they were talking about Ryan Day,

Speaker 2 they would have, they'd be lying to you. If they'd have told you right now that that wasn't a soul-crushing moment that not even a national championship could completely repair and heal.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 2 Like, I think that there's still questions, even if he wins the national championship, is this the right guy? You know, like, is this the right guy?

Speaker 1 It's hilarious, though.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 He's lost to Michigan four times in a row. Like, are you, Bill, are you familiar with the Bayou Classic? I brought this up on Rossillo's podcast.

Speaker 2 Shout out to Riggs.

Speaker 1 But the Bayou Classic,

Speaker 2 at Southern University, rest in peace, dad, like they would rather beat Gramling than win the swack. That's a no-brainer.

Speaker 2 Like, it's a one-game Super Bowl that means everything from some people that are traveling from up north in Louisiana down to New Orleans, us making a shorter drive, and it's all on the line right there.

Speaker 2 And that's just the way college football is. And if you ever get to a point where Ohio State fans will care even a Centella less about beating Michigan, you've lost the whole sport.

Speaker 1 Um, Notre Dame,

Speaker 1 can you walk me through the relationship Notre Dame has now in 2025 with America? Because I know what it meant in the 70s and 80s. To me, it felt like the biggest school on the planet forever.

Speaker 1 And then all of a sudden it wasn't. And then it came back.
And now where are we in 2025?

Speaker 2 I mean, I think it's still probably personal for it probably is the program that your grandmother is most likely to recognize, right?

Speaker 2 Like it does have that. And it no longer has the cachet.

Speaker 2 I mean, there was a time that, you know, this large Catholic, wealthy university, owned network, it had all these advantages over everybody else. Well, we all know that that's not even true.

Speaker 2 They lost a coach to LSU. Like, we're not, you know, no disrespect, Van, you know, but LSU is not Bama.
It's not Texas. It's not Ohio.
Oh, God. This is like shots fired.
I'm just saying.

Speaker 2 Jesus. I grew up.
When I grew up, LSU was a seven and five ass program. No, it was seven and four ass.
Oh, my God.

Speaker 2 Like, before, before,

Speaker 2 before Kevin Falk.

Speaker 1 I'm worried I'm going to get hit by a bullet.

Speaker 2 Okay. Before Kevin Falk went to LSU, and then definitely before Nick Sabin got there, they were like, if Texas A ⁇ M beat or lost to LSU, I'd be like, man, what happened to Texas A ⁇ M?

Speaker 2 So this is bullshit.

Speaker 2 So it is, because LSU was down in the 90s. That's true.

Speaker 2 LSU won the SEC a couple of times in the 80s, which was a hell of a time to win the SEC. The program was pretty good.
It was a... Very important.

Speaker 2 We had to have a Heisman trophy winner, all of that stuff.

Speaker 2 You're talking about Billy Cannon? Yeah, I'm talking about Billy Cannon in 1958. That matters right

Speaker 2 what y'all talking about 58 well y'all talk hold on hold on hold on hold on now and now we do i get to count my celtics title from 1958

Speaker 2 y'all count all them titles from back

Speaker 2 y'all count all of the titles from back in the uh segregated days in boston not not in the nba but but but what i'm saying is lsu when we came into college football yeah was down in the 90s and the reason why the program was down i'm not about to do a whole lsu defense is because a lot of the best players from Louisiana were escaping.

Speaker 2 Warwick Dunn didn't go to LSU. Cordell Stewart didn't go to LSU.
Some of these people, what happened was Nick Saban was able to reorient.

Speaker 2 And Jerry DiNardo, to a degree, was able to reorient the position of LSU in Louisiana where we could keep some of the talent back at home. And when that started, we became a perennial power.

Speaker 2 Let me throw this theory at you because I say that Nick Sabin actually integrated the SEC.

Speaker 2 Like the way that he recruited the LSU, if you look at like in the recruiting rankings over those years, like starting from like the like 98 when Saban gets there, like every year, like the SEC school, like LSU starts creeping up the recruiting rankings.

Speaker 2 And then slowly but surely, and certainly by the time he goes to Alabama, all the other schools start to catch up and they're like, oh, yeah, I guess we need to recruit these guys.

Speaker 2 Because it used to be there was a lot of reticence.

Speaker 2 Like even in even in Texas, like there was some reticence that the University of Texas, they didn't really recruit the guys out of the urban centers like dallas houston those guys went to florida state they went to you know michigan or whatever they didn't go to texas and then like something happened in the late 90s early 2000s and i said like nick saban for me like when i look back at what he did i felt like he integrated the sec in a in a way right and that and i think that's what was the inflection point for lsu but prior to that come on man you know what y'all weren't no in the 90s we were down

Speaker 2 in the oh come on i didn't i didn't realize billy cannons

Speaker 2 Billy Cannon. I forgot about tech.

Speaker 1 Billy Cannon's, you know, what really happened? Shaq went to LSU.

Speaker 1 Shaq went, Shaq went to LSU and it bankrupted the whole school for like 10 years.

Speaker 2 No, they're still playing.

Speaker 2 They still hired Shaq. They hired a guy.

Speaker 2 And this is a cautionary tale for any college program. They hired a guy named Curly Hallman.

Speaker 2 For most programs, never chest a curly. And by the way, we're talking about Bama.
It's so interesting that people go, LSU is not Bama. Bama was was down

Speaker 2 for 10 years too. Bama was down, super down.
We were kicking Bama's ass every single year until Sabin comes to Bama. The first year Saban was at Bama, Bama loses to UL Monroe.

Speaker 2 So what I'm saying is any program out there, right? You look at when Bobby Bowden leaves Florida State, what Florida State has to go through until Jimbo Fisher gets there.

Speaker 2 You look at Texas and Mac Brown. Texas is just getting back.
It doesn't matter what color your blood is in college football, if it's blue, if it's red, whatever it is, you are one bad coaching hire.

Speaker 2 One bad coaching hire. When we were coming up, Nebraska was an unquestionable blue blood, right? Tommy Frazier, Lawrence Phillips, all of these guys haven't been nationally relevant since.

Speaker 2 Colorado, you're one bad hire, one bad hire, two maybe at the most. from being in a situation you don't want to be in.
I wasn't saying LSU was Indiana.

Speaker 2 I'm saying that y'all would not know the dame no we weren't we weren't y'all nobody nobody ever nobody yo don't apologize to him you're right no no no nobody thought lsu is like this great blue blood program it's not about good solid program it's a good solid program but what i'm saying is that if you are a program and you represent a culture where football is very important like it is in louisiana it's like live or die in louisiana it is whether it's lsu southern high school whatever um you're actually one coaching hire away from being able to harness the power of your state lsu was not in the same conversation with notre Notre Dame, USC, or historically, and probably still isn't.

Speaker 2 But I will say, since 2000, you have three national championships. You've played for a fourth national championship.
Nobody wants to hear your credentials. You've won the SEC.

Speaker 2 You've had a ton of people.

Speaker 1 Your team's not even the chip.

Speaker 2 You've had two Heisman Trophy winners. Are you happy with your program?

Speaker 2 Are you happy? Would you rather be a bad person? It's like a fucking booster.

Speaker 2 It's like having Buddy Garrett in here talking about.

Speaker 2 Am I happy with LSU right now? No, I think we should be doing better. But

Speaker 2 to me, trajectory matters. and it and the entire context of where you are matters.
And Coach O, who was a great coach in terms of what he was able to get off of. What a character.
A great coach.

Speaker 2 Character. I mean, I'm going to be honest with you.
In terms of, when I say he was a great coach, this is what I mean.

Speaker 2 If you put together the team that we had in 19 together, you got to at least have the potential to be a great coach. Right.

Speaker 2 And so he wasn't a great long-term guy because he likes to fuck boosters' wives and like

Speaker 2 whatever. So he wasn't a good long-term guy, right? And he left the program in shambles.
For what we needed for the time that we had him, he was good.

Speaker 2 He took what Les Miles couldn't do, undefeated season, all of that stuff. Now, LSU is getting back to the point to where people in South Louisiana are looking for real results from Brian Kelly.

Speaker 2 And we'll see in the next couple of years if we can deliver him.

Speaker 1 Can I throw our hottest take at you guys? Most important guy of this century for the SEC, Dante Culpeper.

Speaker 2 Why?

Speaker 1 Because if Saban picks Drew Brees over Dante Culpeper, he never goes to Alabama. And then what happens to the SEC?

Speaker 2 What are you talking about? We would have been in Alabama. Would you have?

Speaker 2 Would you have? Let's

Speaker 2 man. No, we would have.
Let's

Speaker 2 go. For real? No.

Speaker 1 I don't know if that hottest take worked, but I wanted to fire it up anyway.

Speaker 2 That was very interesting.

Speaker 1 Because I still think Saban's in the NFL now if he has Drew Brees. He would have had Drew Brees for 15 years.

Speaker 2 Oh, no. I got actually, I was confused.
You're saying he went to. So if Nick Saban, what I meant to say is is Saban picked Culpepper over Drew Breeze because Drew had a hurt shoulder.

Speaker 2 What I was saying is, I got a little turned around. I was saying is if Saban never leaves LSU, we'd have been Bama.
We wouldn't have been Bama with less miles.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah, yeah, so you're saying if he if he stays in Miami and he has a lot of success there, then he never comes back. And as yeah, what happens? I mean, look, yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2 I mean, that's the way things happen.

Speaker 2 I'll say that if Saban stayed at LSU, LSU would have been better than Bama.

Speaker 2 Like the Bam, like LSU has a lot more going for it as a program and in terms of what its like potential is as opposed to Bama, I think. But all I'm saying is this.

Speaker 2 Whatever, like I've spent my life watching LSU football, I can tell you this.

Speaker 2 With the talent that is inside of Louisiana, when you look at the guys that we got out there, and y'all can say whatever y'all want to say, right, about LSU, about whatever. People can say whatever.

Speaker 2 Man, Jamar Chase.

Speaker 2 Jefferson, when you look at the talent in the NFL, I'm not talking about guys that just came from BTJ.

Speaker 2 neighbors and Thomas. I'm talking about guys that are from our wide receiver factory.

Speaker 2 Like Derek Stingley, when you talk about guys that are from our state, if we can recruit our state, we'll be competitive with anyone.

Speaker 1 Can we switch gears? Because we're running out of time. All right, Joel, rip it off.
Your five favorite things about college football this season. Van and I are the audience.
I made you have a list.

Speaker 1 You can go five to one or one to five. Your choice.

Speaker 2 I was going to go five to one. Let's do it.
Don't rest yourself. Okay, real quick.
Bill, did you follow Holy Cross football from 2021 to 2023? Yes. You did? I was interested.
I was a quarterback play.

Speaker 1 Well, he went to UNLV and then left after three games.

Speaker 2 Yeah. So, like, that was my number five thing, Matt Sluka going to UNLV.
Because, first of all, like, I think it was one of the rare things.

Speaker 2 It ended up okay for everybody. But for people that don't know, Sluka go, he was the quarterback at Holy Cross, transfers to UNLV, plays the first three games.
UNLV looks great.

Speaker 2 Like, I was like, man, UNLV's got a good damn football program. What happened there?

Speaker 2 Well, it turns out that he says he decides to sit out the rest of the season and take a red shirt because the school didn't follow through on whatever promises they allegedly made about NIL.

Speaker 2 And I thought.

Speaker 1 Well, the follow-through is they didn't fucking pay him. They like whatever the money was.
I don't, I just don't think he got it.

Speaker 2 They promised him $100,000 and he only got like a thousand, right? And I don't know what's the it's still unclear like what the difference is here and why those expectations weren't met.

Speaker 2 But it's like one of these things where you could project your feelings about the NIL era onto the player in this situation.

Speaker 2 And if you like me and you like players getting paid, I didn't mind him withholding his labor until he got what he felt was promised.

Speaker 2 And if you don't like it, it was about like these spoiled and entitled college players prioritizing money over the team.

Speaker 2 So I thought it was like a really, you know, like a fun story that didn't ultimately hurt anybody because UNLV still was badass and slew.

Speaker 1 Well, wait, though, there was a third piece to it, though, which is you have like, thousands of these business deals being cut left and right, right? With teenage kids or kids who are 20, 21. Yeah.

Speaker 1 With these different colleges, they're probably not, they're just like, yeah, yeah, we'll get you 25,000 by, so there's so much room for sleaziness that I don't think we've ever seen before.

Speaker 1 We've only had this with boosters before.

Speaker 2 You're just seeing now

Speaker 2 the opportunity for people to get in people's ears and promise things that they can't then deliver on.

Speaker 2 And the college athlete who is now in a brand new world that's kind of like the wild, wild west with not a lot of protections or structures there to protect them or their family or protect the schools.

Speaker 2 Either you're just seeing a lot of promises not being made. We'll see how who has the power at the end of the day.

Speaker 1 It's either the wild, wild west or it's like that new Netflix show where just everybody gets brutally murdered. What's that show? American Something?

Speaker 2 The Western.

Speaker 1 Tim Riggins is on it.

Speaker 2 It was on Netflix.

Speaker 1 It's like set in the 1800s. Everybody just kills everybody.

Speaker 2 Oh, was that Roots? No.

Speaker 1 No, it's Peter Bird's new show.

Speaker 1 It's called American Something.

Speaker 2 It's It's about Wyoming and just, it's like 1883 more vowel. Anyway, you know, all right.
Show.

Speaker 2 All right.

Speaker 2 Wow. All right.
I'm going to move to number four. So,

Speaker 2 you know, Nick Saban was actually trying to be honest earlier this year when he said the only place you play in the SEC that's not hard to play is in Vanderbilt.

Speaker 2 And then it's like not even a month later, Alabama goes to the Vanderbilt and loses for the first time since 1984, man. Got their ass beat.

Speaker 2 Vanderbilt scored 40 points on them.

Speaker 2 it was, they didn't luck into those points. They beat their ass.
And it was just hilarious. Because, first of all, you also get to see Bama fans go crazy now.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's like they've been, they've lived an unprecedented ride for like the last 15 to 20 years.

Speaker 2 And to see their faces and to see how they responded to losing to Vandy in the first year, post-Saban, it was hilarious. So that was that, that I had to put that in there.
Good bunny. Right.

Speaker 1 I would also add for Saban, I loved when Shane Gillis made fun of him and Saban didn't know how to handle it.

Speaker 2 It was one of my favorite TV moments in a while right because he do you like saban had no sense of humor about it no he was like who the is this guy he's saying we cheated and how and by the way how does he know yeah

Speaker 2 he didn't say did he did shane say anything about charges anything he didn't say anything about a dodge charger no he was just talking he made a paying the players joke yeah and saban was just with it yeah anyway number three number three so uh if you are like me since i followed college football the idea of arizona state football has always been like, Man, Arizona, why isn't

Speaker 2 Arizona State any good? You know, they've got all that, they're in a fast-growing area, they got a lot of sun, it's like a school, like academics ain't gonna be in the problem.

Speaker 2 And if you know, if you like me and you saw, you know, the Playboy edition of Pac-10, you know, Pac-10 season is like, Arizona, you know what I'm saying, is rolling.

Speaker 2 You say elite milk, yeah, yeah, you said it, not me.

Speaker 2 I can't, you know what I'm saying? I'm a family man, I am too, but the truth is the truth.

Speaker 2 So, anyway, about four coaches.

Speaker 2 But, but, man, like, Arizona State was dope this year, man. Like, you kind of see, it's like, oh man, Arizona State's good.
They might have like a future. They got a 34-year-old coach he can recruit.

Speaker 2 You know, they got a little outfit. They're not going to get Cam Scatterboat.
Like, I call that dude Pocket Grunk. Like, I don't know if he's going to be good in the NFL or whatever, but

Speaker 2 like, as a college character, he was perfect for like Arizona State.

Speaker 1 I think, as a rounder he's a must

Speaker 2 like once you get past the second round you're just like throwing darts against a dartboard taking a flyer on him i mean yeah what could he be like tyler algier what what you do know is he has an incredible skill set he can do a lot of different things on the football field he might not have all the measurables i'm sure he'll run like four six or like

Speaker 2 four six yeah but but he is a football player yeah who's so competitive who's been good since he was probably what seven years old always found found a way.

Speaker 2 I'm in on that, dude. The tape always matters more to me than the measurables.
Your tape always matters more.

Speaker 1 It feels like he's going to have some moment where somebody's starting running back will get hurt next year or a year from now, and that guy's going to go in and have like 110 yards and be the big fantasy pickup.

Speaker 1 Yeah. God only knows.

Speaker 2 I mean, that dude beasted against Texas, and like Texas has all the athletes you could think of, and he was awesome.

Speaker 2 All right, number two.

Speaker 2 Number two.

Speaker 2 This was the first Heisman race in about a decade where QB wasn't a serious contender.

Speaker 2 And I love that because we had we could talk about Travis Hunter, who I don't know, I've never seen anything like that in college football.

Speaker 2 Like, maybe if you go down a level or something, or you could say, hey, there's a guy that played, you know,

Speaker 2 a thousand snaps in a season, but I've never seen anybody do that and excel in the way that Travis Hunter did. And like, there was a game this year against UCF.

Speaker 2 He had nine passes for 89 yards, a touchdown, a pass breakup, and interception.

Speaker 2 And he was on the field for 128 of 143 snaps in that game and i'm just like yo like i i don't know what more you could like people thought charles woodson was amazing because he played a few snaps at receiver uh no like travis hunter was doing something else totally and like the aston genti kid i just

Speaker 2 get on soapbox for a second if you think that aston genti got exposed against penn state you are stupid like i literally think that you don't know ball because The dude, like, if you watch that defense and him, like, that guy, it took everything in that Penn State defense and they focused all their efforts on him because they because boys and state couldn't pass and that dude still hammered out 100 yards there was a there was a 10 yard run early in the fourth quarter where six penn state guys got a hand on that guy yeah yeah man yeah i so i love him so it felt like they were must running like a goal line defense on him yeah but i mean he's getting crushed it was tough yards but every yard that he got he had to take it from the defense so he just he proved to me what a good back he was by his performance in that game yeah abdu carter is supposedly a badass one.

Speaker 2 He got hurt tackling Ashton Gentee in that game. You know what I'm saying? So anyway.
And so he said, so Hunter's your favorite?

Speaker 1 Because obviously I'm moving into, I have the fourth pick in the draft with my beloved Patriots because we fucked up the last game of the season.

Speaker 1 But Carter is one of the guys, the fan base is kind of, we have a new coach. He wants to build around the lines.
Like, look at this guy.

Speaker 1 I mean, you should be an amazing pass rusher, but he's probably not going to be there at four. I feel like he's going to go before that.

Speaker 2 Man, yeah.

Speaker 1 It feels like a Will Anderson situation, right? Where he'll just go second.

Speaker 2 second i mean if he does get drafted high i mean a lot of people say but my thing is this if you guys if will anderson will anderson will campbell homer pick will campbell is still on the board when you guys are drafting you guys should take the left tackle or we yeah i think that's where we probably end up yeah so you would play hunter de back or receiver de back because it's so much harder to find guys with that skill set at that position you can get a receiver maybe not as talented as Travis, but you could get something, a reasonable approximation.

Speaker 1 On defense, though, there's just not, there's just not catch like because it seems like the move with him, and maybe he ends up on the pats.

Speaker 1 I don't know, but cornerback and then special packages, and maybe third and third and eight and up, he comes in, and he's like your third receiver.

Speaker 1 And so maybe he's like 10 offensive plays a game and then cornerback, which even that would be like nobody's doing that now.

Speaker 2 Right. I mean, look, I don't know what the feasibility is of him playing too much going both ways in the NFL from a wear and tear situation.

Speaker 2 Travis has been injured before yeah so i don't know what the feasibility is of it i know if i was him

Speaker 2 i would want to play the receiver if i was the money him just for the money however it is warm up they're gonna want him it's like 30 million a year at least yeah they're probably gonna want him to play uh to play db but if i was him I would want to find my way to it's so much fun.

Speaker 1 I remember as a kid, or I wasn't a kid, I guess it was in college, when Dion,

Speaker 1 he was the D-back, but then every once in a while they would play him at receiver. Every time he came in, it was so fucking exciting.

Speaker 2 It was like, are they going to throw bubble screen?

Speaker 1 You're just going to throw deep for him. It was like, you couldn't take your ass off it.
All right, number one.

Speaker 2 Number one, this is kind of obvious. I mean, it just, there was just nothing that was going to indicate that Michigan was even going to be competitive with Ohio State.
It was nothing.

Speaker 2 Like, Ohio State was a 19 and a half point favorite coming in that game. They had a $20 million roster.
Michigan didn't even have their best player that game, like cornerback, Will Johnson.

Speaker 2 He was out that game. And this was like, they had it all set up.
They're at home, they can exact revenge on this team and just totally exercise all those demons.

Speaker 2 And they lost to like the brokest dick offensive team. I mean, I saw at that, like

Speaker 2 I mean,

Speaker 2 they cannot throw a forward pass on that team. It's it's the most, it's one of the most embarrassing and shocking college football losses I've seen.

Speaker 2 Really,

Speaker 2 maybe,

Speaker 2 maybe since Michigan lost to Appalachian State

Speaker 2 a couple of decades before. Like, you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 I struggle to explain how that game happened in the way that it was.

Speaker 1 With the stakes for Ohio State.

Speaker 2 With the stakes for Ohio State, with everything was, with everything that was on the line for Ohio State in terms of what they were playing for, structurally in terms of a college football championship, but also culturally.

Speaker 2 Like the fact that they have been getting their asses kicked and Harbaugh was there and this was the time for them to actually win that game 31 to 10. They couldn't fucking do it.

Speaker 2 And not only that, they got fucking manhandled and got their goddamn manhood taken by their arch rivals. I could not believe it.

Speaker 1 I love this theory that that loss was worse than the high of winning a title. But let me tell you something.
That's a really interesting seesaw.

Speaker 2 And it deluded home, too. I mean, like, they did it on your home field, bro.
I'll be honest with you, though. I think that loss catapulted them into a national championship run.
It makes them mad.

Speaker 2 They got pissed off. They got embarrassed.
They just have not played anywhere nearly like the same team since.

Speaker 2 The unbeatable behemoth that we were told Ohio State was going to be this year, they've played that way subsequently to that loss.

Speaker 2 So that says a lot about their staff and really a lot about their players and their program, to be honest with you.

Speaker 1 Do you guys like Ohio State fans?

Speaker 2 No. Okay.
No. All right.
I have one thing to say, and I have a theory.

Speaker 2 You know, I know concussion came out nine years ago, but I talked about this on the press box. I think Ohio State's quarterback got a concussion in the second quarter.

Speaker 2 I think Will Howard got a concussion because he went, he missed a play for a head. They said they were looking at his head.
He said he was okay. He went back in the game and he never looked the same.

Speaker 2 So that's just, I know that football, we've moved on from that, like worrying about CT and everything, but I kind of feel like that dude had a head injury.

Speaker 1 I will always, for the rest of my life, think Mahomes got a concussion in that Bengals game at the end of the first half.

Speaker 1 And he was never the same after that moment. And that was when they lost.
And I still can't believe they didn't make the Super Bowl that.

Speaker 2 You know what? You guys are, I'm getting so sick of this conversation, this bleeding heart liberal bullshit that I'm listening to. You guys are talking like it's 2018.
Right.

Speaker 2 Like, we should, we, it's all. For God, it's Trump's American.

Speaker 2 The unwokeningness happens. Yeah.
Scramble their brains. Okay.
Like, if I see you out there wearing one of those soft helmets, I'm going to start trolling you and your family.

Speaker 2 Scramble that, like, scramble, scramble their brains. It's over.
We don't have to care anymore. We don't have to care about nothing.
The great unwokening. The great unwokening has happened.

Speaker 2 We don't have to care about nothing. Put Tua right back in the game right now.

Speaker 2 Put them right back in. I don't care.
It's over. I don't have to care no more.
No more marches. All right.
We have to run.

Speaker 1 Van, a pleasure. Joel, awesome to finally have you on.

Speaker 2 Yeah, man. I've had a lot of fun with you guys, man.
Yeah, we'll do it again.

Speaker 2 Easy on LSU.

Speaker 1 All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Joel and to Van.
Thanks to Kyle and Gahau and Sarudi for producing.

Speaker 1 As always, don't forget, you can watch clips and videos from this podcast on the Bill Simmons YouTube channel. And don't forget, part two

Speaker 1 of the Thursday Extravaganza is coming later tonight. NFL, lots of it.
See you in a couple hours.

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